Sep-24-0519-To You I call all the day
519_To You I call all the day Psalm 86 Incline your ear, O Lord, and answer me, for I am poor and needy. 2 Preserve my life, for I am godly; save your servant, who trusts in you—you are my God. 3 Be gracious to me, O Lord, for to you do I cry all the day. 4 Gladden the soul of your servant, for to you, O Lord, do I lift up my soul. 5 For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast love to all who call upon you. 6 Give ear, O Lord, to my prayer; listen to my plea for grace. 7 In the day of my trouble I call upon you, for you answer me. 8 There is none like you among the gods, O Lord, nor are there any works like yours. 9 All the nations you have made shall come and worship before you, O Lord, and shall glorify your name. 10 For you are great and do wondrous things; you alone are God. 11 Teach me your way, O Lord, that I may walk in your truth; unite my heart to fear your name. 12 I give thanks to you, O Lord my God, with my whole heart, and I will glorify your name forever. 13 For great is your steadfast love toward me; you have delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol. 14 O God, insolent men have risen up against me; a band of ruthless men seeks my life, and they do not set you before them. 15 But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. 16 Turn to me and be gracious to me; give your strength to your servant, and save the son of your maidservant. 17 Show me a sign of your favor, that those who hate me may see and be put to shame because you, Lord, have helped me and comforted me. During the dark and bloody years of the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln bore the crushing weight of a nation divided. Day after day, reports of battles arrived—lists of casualties that stretched into the thousands, decisions that would alter the course of history, and political pressures that seemed unbearable. Lincoln, by his own admission, was not always a man of strong personal faith in his early years. But through the agonizing burdens he carried as president, he drew closer to God. He once confessed, “I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had absolutely no other place to go.” Those words capture the very heart of prayer—not a religious duty or a ceremonial act, but as the lifeline of a soul that knows its own poverty and casts itself wholly on God. Psalm 86 is the only psalm of David in the third book of the Psalter. It describes the life of prayer - the how and the what. David finds himself in desperate circumstances, surrounded by enemies and overwhelmed by need. And there was nowhere to go except