Honest With God: Finding Healing and Wholeness Through the PsalmsНамуна

My wife has been through seven interview processes over the past two years. After serving as a prosecutor for 17 years, she felt a call to become a judge. She was appointed as a judge, but then lost a contested election that consumed our family for 10 months. She was one of two finalists for a different judge opening, and the decision-makers overlooked her excellent work filling the role temporarily.

We’ve grieved, mourned, cried, questioned, and raged. We’ve wondered aloud, “God, what are you doing? How long will you let these injustices continue? Do you see us weary and broken here?!” And those are just the prayers that are suitable for publication.

It was during one of those nights that I remembered King David felt the same way: "How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart?" (Psalm 13:1-2 NIV)

David wasn't whispering these questions politely in private prayer. He was demanding answers, crying out with the kind of raw honesty that would make many church people uncomfortable. This psalm wasn't the sanitized faith of Sunday mornings – David’s journal was the messy, desperate faith of someone whose world was falling apart.

Scholars call this kind of prayer "lament" – not complaining or faithless griping, but the honest outpouring of a heart that hurts. Over 40% of the Psalms are laments, which means nearly half of Israel's songbook was written for moments exactly like the one I was experiencing and perhaps what you are experiencing today, as well.

In Psalm 88, another writer cries, "Lord, you are the God who saves me; day and night I cry out to you. May my prayer come before you; turn your ear to my cry." (Psalm 88:1-2 NIV)

God doesn't want our polite, sanitized prayers when our hearts are breaking. He wants our real cries, our honest questions, and our desperate pleas for help. He can handle our anger because His love is bigger than our rage.

You have permission to lament. Your grief has a voice, and God is listening. Before you read tomorrow’s devotional, it might be time to close the door, go for a drive, or find a quiet place in nature. Let it out because God can handle it, and you need to release it!

Tomorrow, I'm going to bust some myths about grief so you can discover God's presence as you let it out.