{"id":516,"date":"2008-02-15T06:11:07","date_gmt":"2008-02-15T15:11:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eaf.net\/pantinghart\/?p=516"},"modified":"2008-02-15T06:13:27","modified_gmt":"2008-02-15T15:13:27","slug":"in-my-distress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/pantinghart\/2008\/in-my-distress\/","title":{"rendered":"In My Distress . . ."},"content":{"rendered":"<table width=130 border=0 cellpadding=10 cellspacing=0 bgcolor=\"#003300\" align=right align=texttop>\n<tr>\n<td><b><font color=\"#339933\">Reading:<\/font><br \/>\n<font color=\"#ffffff\">Psalm 120<\/font><br \/>\n<\/b><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<p>. . . I get discouraged and depressed; everything seems dark; I just let stuff slide.<\/p>\n<p>. . . I get hopeless and fearful.<\/p>\n<p>. . . I get angry and bitter; I allow myself to be unkind and inconsiderate; my natural selfishness really &#8220;shines&#8221; through.<\/p>\n<p>. . . I do stupid stuff &#8212; purposefully &#8212; that I know I shouldn&#8217;t do and normally don&#8217;t want to do. Maybe careless (or worse) driving. Maybe careless (or worse) Web browsing. Maybe careless (or worse) writing and speaking. Maybe careless (or worse) reading and thinking and listening and looking. Maybe evil surmising and wrong imagining and ungodly speaking. Maybe purposefully flaunting rules, God&#8217;s or man&#8217;s.<\/p>\n<p>. . . I pray? And read my Bible? And listen to God-exalting praise music? And sing such music? And read God-lifting, God-ward books? And ask others to pray for me?<\/p>\n<p>I wonder how many people &#8212; even &#8220;mature&#8221; and &#8220;stable&#8221; and &#8220;strong&#8221; and &#8220;dedicated&#8221; Christians like I &#8212; respond with one or more of the first four. I suppose the majority.<\/p>\n<p>This is my testimony:<\/p>\n<p><b><font color=brown>&#8220;In my distress I cried unto the LORD, and he heard me&#8221;<\/font><\/b> (1).<\/p>\n<p>But I still have to resist and reject the first four above. I don&#8217;t always succeed. In fact, it seems I fail so often.<\/p>\n<p>However, I refuse to give up. By the forgiveness and grace of God, I will continue trying.<\/p>\n<p><center><a href=\"\/pantinghart\/wp-content\/thelord-b.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/pantinghart\/wp-content\/thelord-s.jpg\" alt=\"[the LORD (Psalm 120:1)]\"\/><\/a><br \/>\n<br \/><i>from Psalm 120:1<\/i><\/center><\/p>\n<p><b>A little bit more from Psalm 120:<\/b> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.eaf.net\/cgi-bin\/webbbs\/lift\/lift.cgi?read=8372\"><font color=green>Mine or Theirs?<\/font><\/a><\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Reading: Psalm 120 . . . I get discouraged and depressed; everything seems dark; I just let stuff slide. . . . I get hopeless and fearful. . . . I get angry and bitter; I allow myself to be unkind and inconsiderate; my natural selfishness really &#8220;shines&#8221; through. . . . I do stupid [&hellip;]<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-516","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-psalms","7":"h-entry","8":"hentry","9":"h-as-article"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/prJBV-8k","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/pantinghart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/pantinghart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/pantinghart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/pantinghart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/pantinghart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/pantinghart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/pantinghart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/pantinghart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/pantinghart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}