Dear Father in heaven, Im not a praying man, but if youre up there, and you can hear me, show me the way. Im at the end of my rope. That prayer is whispered by a broken-down George Bailey, the character played by Jimmy Stewart in the classic film Its a Wonderful Life. In the now iconic scene, Baileys eyes fill with tears. They werent part of the script, but as he spoke that prayer Stewart said he felt the loneliness, the hopelessness of people who had nowhere to turn. It broke him.
Baileys prayer, boiled down, is simply Help me. And this is exactly whats voiced in Psalm 109. David was at the end of his rope: poor and needy, his heart . . . wounded (v. 22), and his body thin and gaunt (v. 24). He was fading like an evening shadow (v. 23), and sensed himself to be an object of scorn in the eyes of his accusers (v. 25). In his extreme brokenness, he had nowhere else to turn. He cried out for the Sovereign Lord to show him the way: Help me, Lord my God (v. 26).
There are seasons in our lives when broken down says it all. In such times it can be hard to know what to pray. Our loving God will respond to our simple prayer for help.