December 21, 2025 Devo

December 21st, 2025

Walking Through the Psalms
“From the depths of despair, O Lord, I call for your help.” – Psalm 130:1 (NLT)
“Are You Ready to Listen?”

A few years ago, I preached a message called, “Are You Ready to Listen?” The storyline was from the Book of Judges, Chapter 6. The Israelites have gone their own way (again) and are now being overrun by their enemies. With their resources almost exhausted and their land completely ravaged, they decide to do the smart thing. They repent. They turn back to God and cry out for His help. God, in His Infinite Mercy, rescues them. God is so much more faithful to us than we are to Him!
One of the questions I posed in that message was, “Why do we wait until we hit bottom to turn around?” We don’t have to, but we often do. We make a bad decision. Then, we make another bad decision to try to get us out of the first bad decision we made. But that only gets us in deeper. So we make an even worse and more desperate decision to try to undo the first two. Which, of course, leads us into an almost impossibly deep hole.
Why do we have to have no other options at all before we finally choose the BEST option of turning back to God? Why do we put ourselves and others through immense suffering before we choose what we know we should have chosen to start with? You see, the good news is that God will hear your prayer of despair and out of His Great Grace, He will reach out to you. But the BETTER news is that God is more than willing to do that BEFORE you hit bottom. If He’ll hear your cry for help several bad decisions in, He’ll hear your cry for help just ONE bad decision in!
So if you’ve just hit bottom and have nowhere else to go, turn to the Lord. He is Gracious and Merciful and will help you find your way out of the pit you are in. But if you’ve just started off the right path and are smart enough to know that you’re not going in the right direction, turn around TODAY! God loves you and doesn’t want you and those around you to suffer from poor choices and a string of bad decisions. You don’t have to be at the “depths of despair” to get the attention of God. He’s ready to help when you’re ready to ask. Are YOU ready to listen? That’s God’s Word for you today.