Aug 24 - Psalm 10:1

O LORD ...

why do you hide

when I need you the most?

Psalm 10:1

Who can you be totally and truly honest with in your life?

It’s someone you trust. Totally and truly.

•      It’s someone who’ll forgive you when you slip and fall.
•      It’s someone who believes in you, even when you don’t believe in yourself.
•      It’s someone who cares more about your potential than your faults.
•      It’s someone who keeps being generous, even when we’re not always thankful.
•      It’s someone who loves you even on a really bad day.
•      It’s someone who cares enough to tell you the truth – even when the truth is hard to hear – but that’s only true if that same person cares enough to keep coming back, even after you’ve argued and bristled and thrown them out.
•       It’s someone from whom you don’t need to hide your hopes and dreams and fears and failures, because they like you no matter what.

Do you have someone like that?

For most of us, our parents fit that bill … assuming, of course, that they were good parents. Good parents are generous and forgiving, even when we’re rebellious and ungrateful. Good parents tell us the hard truths, and then stick around, even after we whine, yell, and pout. They love us on good days and bad days, and they invite us to crawl in their laps whenever our dreams are crushed.

That’s why Jesus invited us to call God, Father – “Abba” actually. Daddy. Jesus was saying, if you don’t have someone like that list above; you still have someONE like that.

The Psalms are prayers.

The Psalms are honest.

On a bad day, you can yell at God, “why do you hide when I need you the most?” He’s not hiding, of course. But we live in a broken, sinful, hurtful, painful world. It continually breaks us and begs for us to look down.

When we look down, it seems like God is hiding. But even when we yell, our loving Father is patient and loving. We waits for us to look up and then crawl in his lap.

The Psalmist can yell at God – be totally truthful with him – because … why? Because he trusts God completely! He knows that God will never leave him or forsake him. He knows – as he rounds the horn, away from his pain and back to the truth – that “LORD, you know the hopes of the helpless” (Psalm 10:17). When he feels helpless, the Psalmist knows, indeed, that God is his only hope.

Do you have someone that you can trust completely? Humans will always, occasionally, and inevitably let us down – even good Christians, good parents, and good pastors. But God never will. It may seem like he’s hiding, but it’s only because we’re looking down. Look up!

And make an experiment of being as honest as the Psalms.

In Christ’s Love,

a guy who’s neck is sore

… because I love looking up