Being real with God
Psalm 6: If you love me at all, get me out of here.
When I spend any time in the Psalms at all (getting beyond the 1st Psalm, the 23rd, and the 100th) I find that they aren’t all about praising the Lord for his blessings and protection. In fact, there is a lot of heartfelt pain. In this Psalm David cries out to God, asking the Lord to let up on him. He says he’s black and blue and tired of all this! I find here, not only permission to speak to God frankly, from my heart, but I sense the whisper of the Holy Spirit reminding me that, if I do complain to God like that it had better be the real deal. That is, if I’m really hurting and broken and angry, then God wants me to freely express it to him. If I’m just complaining though, I need to stop whining. I need to get on with life; trusting God to see me through. There’s a big difference between my bringing my brokenness to God, honestly expressing my heart to him, and my just being a wimp who complains to God about every little setback in life.
Take Away: I can be real with God, in fact, I’d better be.