The Psalm that I hold close to my heart is Psalm 6:1-12 which is a Psalm of David who has personally wrote 70 of the Psalms found in the Bible. Psalm 6 is called “A Prayer of Distress.” This passage means a lot to me as a person. I am a poet so I am very connected and in love with the Psalms. This Psalm in particular is one I read when I am weak. I read it because it reminds me that everyone is weak, this is nothing new. Its words really make me feel such incredible emotions. I as a poet like to know when I’m writing a poem that somehow someone will understand and relate to it because overall as humans, we need to recognize that we all have felt a certain way before. Anything you feel has been felt before, is felt now and will be felt down the road. This Psalm makes me remember two important things. One, is what I just mentioned, that even in my darkest hour and weakest moment, someone else has already felt that. The second thing this Psalm of David makes me remember is that the strongest of people need God and that it is okay to ask for God’s mercy and strength. It is okay to be in bed late at night weeping for God no matter how small or big the problem is. God is the only one that can dry our tears and heal our souls fully. Human hearts cannot be whole or ever pure and will always be broken unless we ask God to heal us like David does in Psalm 6.
At the time this Psalm was written, I think the overall intention of it was to let people know that even kings are weak and fearful. It show’s David’s fragileness and tiredness to the world. If people back then read this passage, they probably realized even more how powerful God is because if a king is crying out for God’s healing then it shows that even kings have limits. It proves to the people that nobody is above God and nothing here can save our souls and end our pain. Kings may have unlimited food, drink, sex and riches, but none of those material and physical things are going to heal their worn out souls and put a noose around their fears. If people realize this then they may have a real and even stronger understanding of how powerful God truly which would perhaps strengthen their faith more.
This also goes for today’s people, except instead of looking up to kings, we look up to celebrities. I suppose they are similar in the idea that they have unlimited material things as the kings did. They have everything they could possibly want (so we think) and we as a society gravitate to that. Sometimes, it seems as if we look to celebrities as God. They may even think they are God but celebrities, like kings, have their weaknesses. In fact, we hear all the time that a lot of celebrities suffer from depression and are not really all that happy even with all of their pretty and luxurious items. This is because they are human and humans are delicate. They cannot heal themselves with their fancy cars or expensive clothes. God understands that and is willing to heal us of we ask Him. All humans ever have to do is ask.