Psalm 56

I'm up early this morning.

Outside its thundering ... but that didn't wake me.

I was thinking and praying. Asking. Hoping. Confessing. And running my sermon through my head. The end doesn't come out right on paper, but it does when I am quiet. Thinking. Praying. Asking. Hoping. Confessing.

The key verse at the end of the sermon is Exodus 2:23-24: "Out of the slavery their cry for help rose up to God. God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." Whenever we truly, truly, deeply cry, God will answer. Yes, we do cry ... readily ... sometimes ... but we keep our cry on a string. Like walking our dog on a leash, we want to maintain an element of control. We want to reserve the right to cry out for a moment and then recompose ourselves and go back to doing it our way.

David says, "1 The enemy troops press in on me." Sometimes enemy troops are cancer cells. Sometimes enemy troops are the persistent worries in the middle of the night. Sometimes enemy troops are the suits at corporate who are deciding the fate of dozens of people in our division. Sometimes the enemy troops are our own doubts and insecurities. We cry out ... but we keep our cry on a string. We want to be helped just enough that we can be put back in control again.

That's probably why I'm up early. Too many details swarm like enemy troops. But God doesn't want me ... or you ... or even our President to be in control. He wants us -- like King David -- to let go and let him.

He wants us to cry. Admittedly, that's not a very manly response to most situations. If we said like David, "You have collected all my tears in your bottle," how many of us would proudly say, "Well, that'd be a pretty small bottle." And -- yank -- we pull back on the leash, and we miss the grace because "9 on the very day I call to you for help, my enemies [whatever they are] will retreat."

Lord, help me instead to remember how many times

"13 you have rescued me from death [and] kept my feet from slipping.

[Help me] now [to] walk in your presence, O God,

in your life-giving light.

Lord, "3 when I am afraid,

I put my trust in you."

P.S. A few weeks ago, musician/songwriter David Michael Carrillo was at Spirit of Joy. He told of opening his Bible one day, pointing to a verse -- "3 when I am afraid, I put my trust in you" -- and hearing a song chorus in his head. When he played it in worship the first time, a whole song came out instead of just a chorus. "God just gave me the whole song." These words -- ten years later -- was one of the songs that helped many people make it through the massacre at Columbine High School. My early morning ponderings pale in comparison to the true tragedies of this world. But practicing daily through the ups and downs of life prepares us for the true trials. If you made it to the end of today's reading, thanks for wrestling along with me!