Heart Trouble

King David was having heart trouble...the worst kind. His heart was failing him, losing confidence before God because of his own sinfulness.

Compounding his misery were his powerful enemies who took delight in his failures. So he was besieged by a bad conscience within and demonically inspired pressure from without.

By God's grace, David knew God's truth, and that it was higher than his present experience. As the Apostle John wrote hundreds of years later, "God is greater than our hearts and knows all things."

So David confessed his sins and sought the blessing of God's presence. His heart was troubled, but he dealt with it by seeking the Lord's blessing and waiting patiently for God to answer his prayers.

So too, we should not allow our hearts to be troubled because we have the truth of God in Christ. Yet when and if such trouble gets to us deep inside, let us not go by our heart, but rather by the written Word of God. Scripture says, "The fool trusts in his own heart." We need God's wisdom in these matters so we don't over react nor fail to act.

Here's the story (Psalm 40) of David's distress and how God brought him back into spiritual balance:

11 Do not withhold Your tender mercies from me, O Lord;
Let Your lovingkindness and Your truth continually preserve me.

12 For innumerable evils have surrounded me;
My iniquities have overtaken me, so that I am not able to look up;
They are more than the hairs of my head;
Therefore my heart fails me.

("iniquities" may be seen as those plans we make outside of the will of God as revealed in scripture)

(And then):
16 Let all those who seek You rejoice and be glad in You;
Let such as love Your salvation say continually,
"The Lord be magnified!"

17 But I am poor and needy;
Yet the Lord thinks upon me.
You are my help and my deliverer;
Do not delay, O my God.

A healthy heart has Christ seated on its throne.

Suggest the reading of the whole of Psalm 40. The Psalms are the experiential side of the believer's life. We can always find an "aha" moment in them as we peruse these common experiences of God's people through life.