NorthStar Community Daily Devotional

July 9

Scripture focus: My God, my God, why have You forsaken me? Far from my deliverance are the words of my groaning. O my God, I cry by day, but You do not answer; and by night, but I have no rest. Yet You are holy, O You who are enthroned upon the praises of Israel. In You our fathers trusted; they trusted and You delivered them. To You they cried out and were delivered; in You they trusted and were not disappointed. But I am a worm and not a man, a reproach of men and despised by the people. All who see me sneer at me; they separate with the lip, they wag the head, saying, "Commit yourself to the LORD; let Him deliver him; let Him rescue him, because He delights in him."

Yet You are He who brought me forth from the womb; You made me trust when upon my mother's breasts. Upon You I was cast from birth; you have been my God from my mother's womb. Be not far from me, for trouble is near; for there is none to help. Psalm 22:1-11

Somewhere along the line I constructed a theology which protects God, though it seems abundantly clear now that he neither needs nor desires my protection.

Surely God does not care to hear me whine about my problems.

I remember how I desired to explain to people after such instances as the shooting that took place while I was at Virginia Tech that God was not responsible.

Ultimately, I was afraid of the reality that God does possess some level of responsibility during times of suffering. The Psalms illustrate that while human sinfulness may act as the most immediate cause of a given circumstance, God ultimately possesses the power to intervene.
Because he has this power, the Psalms indicate that it is okay to cry out and request this intervention, or even more drastically, to assess blame.

Prior, I found myself too invested in maintaining God’s appearance as one above reproach to allow myself to fully relate and engage him in this way.

The Psalms and my prayer life took on new vitality as I began to pray them myself rather than reading them simply as another person’s prayers. Not only do these Psalms indicate that lament serves as an acceptable form of prayer, but they also contain hope and an expectancy of God’s action. swm

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