Tag Archives: Psalms

There is Crying in the Bible

There is no crying in baseball…although I would not mind if Yankee fans shed a few tears tonight. Otherwise, there is no crying in baseball, but there is indeed crying in the Bible.

Jesus cried in John 11 at the death of Lazarus. In the Greek, the word for weeping describes tears falling down Jesus’ face. He cried (a different Greek word) out to the Father to awaken Lazarus from the dead, and God the Father did. Other times, Jesus cried out to God for justice, or comfort. Some of his cries shed tears while other cries were heard and heeded by God the Father.

Jesus cried. It is what humans do. Overcome by joy or sorrow, our faces leak, as Bob Maloogalooga, one of my favorite movie characters observed. When the psalmist wrote that you are intricately made, perhaps he also had in mind the well of your emotions. Crying, Jesus taught us, is a human response to life.

Back in 1 Kings, there is crying. The prophet Elijah was sent to a widow. He asked her to help him and later he helped her. She had a young son who was ill to the point that “there was no breath left in him.” (1 Kings 17:17).

She blamed Elijah. “What have you against me, O man of God? You have come to bring my sin to remembrance, and to cause the death of my son!”

Elijah asked for the boy, laid him down and cried out to the Lord. “O Lord my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I am staying, by killing her son?”

This reminds me of a prayer Will Willimon cried out to God. Just before entering a hospital room where a young boy was gravely ill, where despair held everyone captive, and hope was absent. He cried out to God, “Don’t you make me go in there and lie for you!”

Cries speak the depth of who we are. They pull from the corners of our most honest self, the corners we mostly leave untouched.

Cries connect you with the God who hears them, as both Elijah and Jesus show you. There is crying in the Bible. There is crying in life.

There is no cry that goes unheard by God, who became a human who cries, who tenderly gathers up your cries and holds them for you.

Even the potential cries of Yankee fans, God will hear them. At least I think so. Some things I do not know.

What prayer might you cry out to God?

Photo by Christian Gunn on Unsplash

The Phone Call You Need to Make Today

Someone you know is having a rough day. You may not know it, because your someone wouldn’t want you to worry.

As your someone waits for a diagnosis, pushes through chronic pain, wrestles with gender or sexual identity, grieves a death, or struggles through another sleepless night with a new baby, you have no idea how alone your someone feels.

Loneliness is something of a pandemic these days. How ironic it is that most Americans feel a deep sense of loneliness and mistakenly believe we’re all alone in our loneliness. We are a community of lonely people, including the someone you know who is having a rough day who might be praying a version of this prayer from “Sheltering Mercy: Prayers Inspired by the Psalms,” Psalm 70:

Grant me strength, O Lord.
Can You not scatter these dark spirits
with the sound of a thundering army,
or twist their devil tongues to confusion?

On this day, you might be the one to scatter the dark spirits, to re-member (bring back together) someone with your community. You might be the one to embody the promise and join in the prayer of the next paragraph of Psalm 70:

For You,
Lord of light and beauty,
are Lord over death and darkness as well - 
all evil prostrates in Your presence.
Send those taunting voices back to the depths of the earth
where they belong.

There is a phone call you need to make today to scatter the dark spirits and reshape the community of the lonely into the community of the re-membered.

Photo by Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash

What Do You Long to Know?

“See how my heart is open, Lord;
how I long to know the wisdom of Your ways;
the mysteries of Your mercy.”

Psalm 25, “Sheltering Mercy: Prayers Inspired By the Psalms”

What do you long to know? The psalmist longs to know the mysteries of God’s mercy. With everything going on in your own life today, what is it you long to know?

I have noticed recently, or been reminded maybe, of the mysteries of the future for youth and young adults in that particular season of life. I remember longing to know what the future held for me. Where did I belong and with whom? What work would I do and where?

As youth and young adults round the last corner of an academic year, the mysteries of the future can be a heavy burden. Longing to know the future of companionship, vocation and the next permanent address can be lonely work.

In this stage of life, what I long to know is different. I long to know the future for my own kids and what my work will look like in the decades around the corner. I long to know what will happen to Inspector Gamache and if I will ever write that second book.

Today, what do you long to know? The psalmist’s heart is open in Psalm 25. As you long to know whatever it might be you long to know, let the mystery of God’s mercy guide your longing. And keep your heart open.

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

What You Hold, and What Holds You

(Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash)

Moms can be so fast. We catch rolling objects about to fall from the counter and crash onto the floor. We catch tiny people when they nearly tumble off the couch. We catch and we hold. Moms are trusty catchers and holders.

In my morning prayer, the last words of Psalm 63 (a prayer to God) caught me: “My whole being clings to you, your right hand holds me fast.” Moms juggle, God holds. Moms multi-task, God holds. Moms schedule and administer, God holds.

Always there are changes in your life. Beginnings and endings, trials and tribulations, joys and sorrows. Moms orchestrate through those changes and all the while, God holds. It is the one constant. You who are busy juggling, multi-tasking, scheduling, administering, grieving, worrying, celebrating. God holds.

God holds all the stuff. God holds the promise that you do not do the wild and wonderful work of being a mom alone. And God holds you. That’s the greatest gift of all. You who catch and hold so much from day to day are already held in the constant love of the God who will hold you forever.