Lately, I’ve been feeling rather undone.  There has been far too much brokenness and pain for a human brain to rightly process and make sense of.  The moral compass of the world is tenuous; the political compass of America is destructive.   Add in my own wrestlings of life and God to the equation, and I start an internal crumble.

Though the sun is shining from a vibrant blue sky, a murky cloud seems to hang over life.  It prevents me from seeing beauty or hearing birds sing or recognizing good around me.  It takes some serious effort to list things to be grateful for.

It’s in times like these that my soul feels rattled and I search hard to see evidences of God to encourage me forward.  Scriptures clearly remind me who God is, and worship buoys my heart in praise to Him.  But I cannot stay in this glorious place all day.  Closing the Word, letting the music fade into quiet, and stepping back into life’s fragments of loss and brokenness, challenges the reality of my faith.

What refreshment to my soul to find several verses in Psalms that refer to God as “my Strength.”  Yes, the psalmist had the wisdom to recognize the strength of God not only as a quality of his character, but something that defines who He is.  It becomes a defining title, a name with a capital S.

How beautiful is it that Almighty God is known not just by the title of “Strength,” but as “my Strength?”  The title of Strength that defines the living God is given to His children for their ownership.  That is a treasure worth clinging to when we are so blatantly aware of our own weakness and woundedness.

Psalm 22 is a mournful psalm of feeling forsaken and distanced by God.  It includes the famous words that Jesus quoted when he cried out to His Father from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”  The psalm continues, “Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning.  O my God, I cry out…but you do not answer.”   (:1-2)

These are deep soul cries of faith from a heart that knows and loves its Lord and Savior, yet feels terribly alone in a place of deep suffering and pain.  It comes from a place of inner yearning to hear God’s voice and be assured of His presence.  I know!  I’ve been there on more occasions than I care to recount.  It is a time of painful spiritual wrestling with God that ultimately does result in growth of faith.  But oh, the process can be hard.

David, the psalm writer, was beautifully referred to by God as “a man after God’s own heart.”  He was a complex character: a giant slayer, a singing shepherd turned king, a strong warrior, an adulterer and murderer, a penitent sinner.  As a songwriter, he had a great ability to bare his emotions and faith before his God.

Following his initial lament in Psalm 22, he quickly looks to God’s holiness for comfort and declares his trust in Him.  In true honesty, he reveals the weariness of his soul as he strives for faith in his struggle.  “My strength is dried up like a potsherd….I am laid in the dust of death.” (:15)  A potsherd is a pottery fragment dug from an archaeological site.  Broken, jagged, dried up, frail. A well portrayed image of inner fragility.

After a tumultuous season of tragedy, a dear friend said she felt like a vase smashed into a million pieces.  Without realizing it, she was echoing David’s feelings.  She, too, did not have strength within herself to rise from her place of brokenness and pain.

David then does a remarkable thing.  From his place of dried up strength, he turns to the Lord and cries out for divine help.  He refers to the Lord as “my Strength.”  In desperate faith he cries out to the One he knows is able to renew his strength.  “But you, O LORD, be not far off; O my Strength, come quickly to help me.” (:19) Yes, he calls the Lord by name: “Strength;” a title of well-placed faith.

“My Strength” is also our strength. God desires to reveal Himself as “Strength” to us in our places of emotional weakness and soul weariness; to pour His strength into our dry and frail places of need and prove His great sufficiency to us.

It is here where the soul finds some stability and the inner crumble lightens.  It is here where faith is raw and God becomes real, where His Spirit meets ours in an ebbing process of renewal.  It is a place of hope, where we place our trust in who God says that He is.  He is Strength, “my Strength,” the one who restores our souls.  (Psalm 23:3)