Psalms 38:9

Lord, all my desire is before Thee; and my groaning is not hid from Thee.

God’s knowledge of our desires

I. We have here A fact that is without exception. The Lord knows all our desires. How great, then, must God be, and how near such knowledge brings us to God.

II. The performance of as important duty. David was in the habit of prayer. He does not speak of his prayer as an unusual thing, or that should make men talk of him as eminently religious. Now, such habitual prayer is our duty. Do not restrain prayer, and remember, the groaning that is directed to God is very often effectual fervent prayer.

III. A state of hallowed privilege. If the text be true of us, then there is no need for anxiety. God will surely do what is best for me.

IV. A large provision of rest for the soul. How quiet a man may be, and ought to be, who can speak thus to God. It is the childlike converse of a man with his God.

V. A comfortable thought for seasons of weakness and discouragement. What a comfort it is to feel that God knows all, that He will accept as real prayer the utterance of a mere groan.

VI. It is also A plea is prayer. “I have told Thee all, now do as Thou hast said.” (Samuel Martin.)

Desires towards God

We would not pamper weakness till we seem to offer a premium to unbelief; but yet we would feed the feeble in the king’s meadows till they become strong in the Lord. If great efforts are put forth to build or endow a hospital, you do not say, “Sickness is a desirable thing, for all this money is spent upon comforting and helping those who feel it.” Your feelings are quite the contrary: though these sick folk become the object of care, it is not as a reward to them, but as an act of compassion towards them. Let none, therefore, say that the preacher encourages a low state of grace: he encourages it no more than the physician encourages disease when he tries by his care and skill to heal the sick.

I. Desires towards God should be made known to him.

1. Because our whole life ought to be transparent before God. What secrets can there be between a soul convinced of sin and a pardoning God.? Tell Him your fears for the past, your anxieties for the present, and your dreads for the future; tell Him your suspicions of yourself, and your trembling lest you should be deceived. Make all your heart known unto God, and keep back nothing, for much benefit will come to you from being honest with your best Friend.

2. Because it is commanded of God that, we should make our desires known to him. He says that “men ought always to pray and not to faint”; and again, “in everything by prayer and supplication let your requests be made known unto God.” Jesus said, “Watch and pray,” and His apostle said, “I will that men pray everywhere.” And what is this but to make your desires known to God?

3. It is a great benefit to a man to be able to express his desires, and this is an argument for making them known to God. A glance at some desires would seal their doom, for we should feel them to be unworthy to be presented before the Lord.]Jut when it is a holy and pure desire, tell it, for it will relieve your heart, it will heighten your estimate of the blessing sought, it will bring you to think over the promises made to such desires, it will thereby strengthen your hope that your desire will be fulfilled, and enable you by faith to obtain it. The prayerful expression of one desire will often quicken further desires, and make a thousand of them where there was but one.

4. A gracious expression of desire before God will often be to you a proof that those desires are right. Thy desire must be a good thing, or thou wouldst not dare to make it known to God; and seeing that it is a good thing, take care thou nurture it well, and cause it to grow by expressing it with thy whole heart before God.

II. Desires towards God are gracious things. Intense groaning desires towards God are in themselves works of grace.

1. For certainly they are associated with other graces. When a man can say, “All my desire is towards God, and my heart groans after Him, and yet I find little in myself but these desires,” I think we can point to some other good things which are in his heart. Surely humility is apparent enough. Thou takes, a right view of thyself, O man of desires! A lowly esteem hast thou of thyself, and this is well. Aye, and there is faith in thee, for no man heartily desires to believe unless he doth in some measure already believe. There is a measure of believing in every true desire after believing. And thou hast love, too; I am sure of it. Did ever a man desire to love that which he did not love already? Thou hast already some drawings of thy heart Christwards, or else thou wouldst not cry to be more filled with it. He who loves most is the very man who most passionately desires to love more. I am sure, also, that thou hast some hope; for a man does not continue to groan out before his God, and to make his desire known, unless he has some hope that his desire will be satisfied, and that his grief will be assuaged. David lets out the secret of his own hope, for he says in the fifteenth verse, “In Thee, O Lord, do I hope.” You do not hope anywhere else, do you?

2. Another proof that they are gracious is that they come from God. Now, as God can say of all that He creates, “It is very good,” I come to the conclusion that these groaning desires after God are very good. They are not great, nor strong, but they are gracious. There is water in a drop as well as in the sea, there is life in a gnat as well as in an elephant, there is light in a beam as well as in the sun, and so is there grace in a desire as truly as in complete sanctification.

3. Holy desires are a great test of character: a test of eminent value. You inquire, “Can you judge a man’s character by his desires?” 1 answer, yes. I will give you the other side of the question that you may see our own side all the more clearly. You may certainly judge a bad man by his desires. Here is a man who desires to be a thief. Well, he is a thief in heart and spirit. Who would trust him in his house now that he knows that he groans to rob and steal? Let us, then, measure out justice in our own case by the rule which we allow towards others. If you have an earnest, agonizing desire towards that which is right, even though through the infirmity of the flesh and the corruption of your nature you do not reach to the height of your desire, yet that desire is a test of your character. The main set of the current determines its direction: the main bent of the desire is the test of the life.

III. Desires towards God are carefully observed by him. God has a quick eye to spy out anything that is good in His people; if there is but one speck of soundness, if there is a single mark of grace, if there is any remaining token of spiritual life, though it be only a faint desire, though it be only a dolorous groan, the Father sees it, and records it, casting the evil behind His back, and refusing to behold it.

IV. Earnest desires towards, God will be fulfilled.

1. These desires are of God’s creation, and you cannot imagine that God would create desires in us which He will not satisfy. Why, look even in nature, if He gives the beast hunger and thirst He provides for it the grass upon the mountains and the streams that flow among the valleys. If, then, He Himself has put in you a desire after Himself, He will give you Himself. If He has made you long after pardon, purity, eternal salvation, He means to give you these.

2. Remember, O desiring man, that already you have a blessing. When our Divine Master was on the mountain-side the benedictions which He pronounced were no word blessings, but they were full of weight and meaning, and among the rest of them is this--“Blessed are they that do hunger and thirst after righteousness.” Blessed while they hunger, blessed while they thirst. Yes, they are already blessed, and there is this at the back of it, “for they shall be filled.”

3. And we may be sure that God will hear the desires which He has Himself created, because He loves to gratify right desires. It is said of Him in nature, “Thou openest Thine hand and satisfiest the desire of every living thing.” Doth God care for sparrows in the bush, for minnows in the brook, for midges in the air, for tiny things in a drop of stagnant water, and will He fail to satisfy the longings of His own children? (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Our groaning not hid from God

The wistful look of a dumb creature, or a moan of pain, is a prayer to a merciful man. Man deals tenderly with those who are robbed of the organs of expression. He watches with sedulous earnestness each faint indication of pain or need, that he may be ready with his ministry. Is the ear of God more dull, think you, than man’s, to these unutterable groanings; or is this human pity and sympathy the faint and finite image of an infinite pity and sympathy which are waiting to respond to us there? Pity which, great as may be the power of prayer which words can frame, finds in the longing that is too deep for words, the groaning that is too sad for tears, an appeal which is irresistible, and would even endure the sharpness of death rather than that such a suppliant should be sent empty away.

I. The efficacy of prayer.

1. It cleans and purifies the desires. The effort to utter them before God in prayer is a purification. Many a mixed desire which lies confusedly in the mind, filling it with distress, gets purified by the effort. The bringing it into God’s presence is like bringing a mass of rank vegetation into the sunlight. Leave it there awhile. The pure fire of God’s presence kills all that is noxious in the desire, all that is born of worldliness and lust.

II. The second clause opens a yet deeper depth. There are groanings which cannot become prayers, and “my groaning is not hid from they.” Would that I could pray! is the language, in moments of deep religious feeling, of many a vain, selfish, worldly, or lustful heart; I should feel then that the battle was really gained. There are times when the effort to pray seems almost impious. A kind of dull despair weighs on the spirit, and crushes down all its energies. “When I would do good, evil is present with me,” “O miserable man that I am.” What help can there be, what hope, for such an one as I? “Brethren, the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” But there is a mightier thing still; something that lodges a more resistless appeal in the very heart of the Divine compassion: it is the pain that cannot tell its misery in a prayer. It is a blessed thing for me that God heareth and answereth prayer; more blessed still, that “My groaning is not hid from Thee.” (J. Baldwin Brown, B. A.)