“Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am in distress; my eye is wasted from grief; my soul and my body also. For my life is spent with sorrow, and my years with sighing; my strength fails because of my iniquity, and my bones waste away.” -Psalm 31:9–10
David is in distress. The word distress implies extreme anxiety, sorrow, or pain. His entire being is exhausted by the burden (i.e., eyes, body, soul). And, it seems there is the added burden of recognizing one’s whole life seems to have been spent in sorrows.
There is something profoundly helpless in the tone of David’s prayer. To ask the Lord to be gracious is recognition of his own guilt. Verse 10 affirms at least part of David’s distress is due to his iniquity—his sin. Grace is the unmerited favor of God. It has been said that grace is getting what we don’t deserve while mercy is not getting what we do deserve.
This life, filled with the sins of our own and others, can seem at times to be filled with nothing but sorrow. But as David teaches us by his prayer, and as the Lord taught St. Paul, God’s grace is sufficient for us.
“So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” -2 Corinthians 12:7–9
Let us simply ask for it.