Formations: "Empowering Presence"           May 24, 2026

Psalm 143

In this psalm of lament, the psalmist lays his heart bare before God in a time when he feels an enemy is crushing his life to the ground. In these dark days, his spirit faints (v. 4) and is failing (v. 7), so he cries out to God for relief. He prays for salvation and guidance, saying, “Let your good spirit lead me on a level path” (v. 10). 

We should be careful how we handle the reference to God’s “good spirit.” This is, after all, an Old Testament passage written long before anyone first proposed the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. 

What might that word “spirit” mean in this context? We can confidently say that it describes God’s empowering presence. It is a presence that partakes of the divine and makes us aware of the divine. But it is probably not wise to assign later Christian connotations to the term when we find it in the Hebrew Bible or read it through the lens of Trinitarian thought. 

Even so, this passage contrasts God’s spirit (or Spirit), which leads and protects, with our human spirit, which so often fails us. Our spirit is limited. It can fail us in dark times and lead us into despair. But God’s spirit leads and protects us. When we find ourselves in the darkest valleys, we can rely on God’s spirit—God’s empowering presence.

On this Pentecost Sunday, as we remember the coming of God’s Spirit upon the first disciples fifty days after the resurrection, take some time to reflect on your experience of the Spirit. When might you have prayed something like what the psalmist prays in today’s passage? When have your spirit fainted, yet you were held up by God’s good Spirit? 

Darrell Pursiful is the editor of Formations. He is an adjunct professor at Mercer University and an active member of the First Baptist Church of Christ in Macon, Georgia.