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.
Tag: trial
Devotional on the Psalms
Trust in trial
Psalm 94: God will never walk away from his people.
A friend, who’s in the middle of about five disasters, including a couple of big physical problems of her own, bravely says to me, “I know the Bible says that God won’t let us face more than we can bear.” The unstated side of that is, “I don’t know how much more of this I can take!” In this psalm, a person who trusts in God questions the seeming unending flow of painful events in life. He sees all that’s happening and asks God, “How long will you let this go on?” Then the song writer begins to answer his own question reminding us that surely the “Ear-Maker” hears what’s being said and the “Eye-Maker” sees what’s going on. He states, “God will never walk away from his people.” There are times in life when we’re left with nothing but our trust in God’s love. We believe that he hears our prayers, sees what’s happening, and that he loves us with a never-ending love. At times like that it’s perfectly acceptable for us, on one hand, to proclaim, “I know it’ll be okay because the Lord’s on my side” while, on the other hand to cry out, “Lord, how much longer before you act on my behalf?”
Take Away: It doesn’t offend the Lord when his people cry out to him in painful, dark days.