Honest With God: Finding Healing and Wholeness Through the PsalmsНамуна

One of the most significant challenges of being a leader is acknowledging and addressing your own weaknesses and failures. I’m constantly reminded of my own limits and seeking to learn from my mistakes. Someone recently asked me to share about a mistake I’d made in my leadership. I said, “How much time do you have?!”

While he laughed, I thought of a recent situation where I had missed an opportunity to do the right thing, and someone had suffered as a result. It’s one thing to sin by doing the wrong thing, but we also sin by not doing the right thing. Sometimes, missing one of those opportunities hurts the most!

That morning, desperately searching for hope, I found myself reading words from Psalm 40:1 NIV that stopped my spiraling thoughts cold:

"I waited patiently for the Lord;
he turned to me and heard my cry."

Honestly, what I wanted God to do was give me a time machine so I could go back in time and fix my mistakes. But, since I didn't think that was an option, what I wanted was for God to hear me. And that first verse in Psalm 40 gave me hope that God was hearing my cries for help!

Once I had hope that God would hear me, I poured out my heart to him, asking him to work in this seemingly hopeless situation. I asked him to redeem my mistake and give me a second chance. As I poured out my prayer, I kept reading and discovered that David understood my own longings.

"He lifted me out of the slimy pit,
out of the mud and mire;
he set my feet on a rock
and gave me a firm place to stand." (Psalm 40:2 NIV)

That remains my prayer. I'm not sure yet how God will work, but I'm leaning on His strength and grace. I find comfort in the fact that God was not surprised by my weakness nor shocked by my struggles. His response to my (and David's) fragility wasn't frustration; it was fatherly compassion.

I can't guarantee how your current challenge will work out, but I can promise that God will hear your cry. He can work in ways that you can't comprehend.

Tomorrow's reading includes a real story of how God works when we cry out to Him.