pour out your heart

O God, you’ve walked off and left us, and never looked back…

In my experience, most humans are very restrained in their conversations with God. It seems we find it difficult to be bold, raw, and transparent. 

I can remember a number of years back while reading a book on prayer and I was challenged in such tendencies in my own praying. The author pointed out the obvious. Namely, there was all kinds of boldness, rawness, and transparency that occurred in my mind, unspoken. But did I actually think that God didn't hear those words between my ears?

Such restraint is also curious given the kinds of prayers we read in the Psalms. These singer/songwriters aren’t restrained in their boldness, rawness, and transparency; and such emotions don't reside merely between their ears, but are found on their lips.

For example:

You walked off and left us, and never looked back.
God, how could you do that?
We’re your very own sheep;
how can you stomp off in anger?
Refresh your memory of us—you bought us a long time ago.
Your most precious tribe—you paid a good price for us!
Your very own Mount Zion—you actually lived here once!
Come and visit the site of disaster,
see how they’ve wrecked the sanctuary.
(Psalm 74:1-3, The Message)

Do me a favor would you, and read those words again? Actually, wait one moment.

First imagine someone in a really difficult situation.
They feel all alone, and forgotten by the world.
Maybe they don't just feel alone, maybe they are alone.
At Christmas-time.
It's painful, this loneliness, this darkness. It’s the kind of darkness that you can feel, like the plague of old has come from God again (Exodus 10:21).
Maybe you don't have to imagine it.
Maybe you feel this way.
You are in the midst of a painful, hurting situation.
And you can relate to the words of the one who wrote the words, the song, the prayer, above.

Ok, go ahead, move your eyes up the screen and read the words from the Psalmist again.

They're bold aren't they?

Now, I want you to imagine again.
Imagine standing before God himself, uttering similar words….

"What gives, God? Do you even remember me? I mean, have you forgotten me?"

Our family is going through an Advent devotional from a church out east, which is how this Psalm and such thoughts were brought to my attention this morning. And they haven’t let go of me, which is why I’m trying to work them out in my own words with you here in this space. But now I’d like to directly quote that devotional, which elaborated on the words from Psalm 74:

The issue is not whether God has literally forgotten his people. Rather, this is God's people calling on God to be faithful to the promises He has made. That's what the term “remember” means.

As God's people, we know that God is faithful and that He will keep his promises. When we pray, we are bringing those promises before God and asking Him to show Himself faithful in a particular way. This kind of prayer is pleasing to God, and it's found throughout the Old Testament. For example, in Exodus 2, when God's people were slaves in Egypt, they cried out to God for rescue and it says that God "remembered":

"And God heard their groaning,
and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.
God saw the people of Israel--and God knew." 
(Exodus 2:24-25)

Don't miss this, dear reader.
Mix your groaning with God’s promises.

Don't hold back when you talk with God.
He is your Father, and he wants to hear you, his child, unrestrained and unedited.
He wants to hear your groanings in all their boldness, rawness, and transparency.
And in the midst of your groaning, he wants you to call him on his promises.
Because he already knows what you are going through.
And there's nothing you can hide. 

So just tell him.

And no matter how lonely you feel, 
no matter how abandoned,
no matter how dark the darkness,
you are not forgotten,
and you are never alone.

I mean, dear friend, where can you go from God's Spirit?
Where can you flee from his presence?
If you ascend to heaven, he is there.
If you make your bed in the grave, he is there.
If you take the wings of the morning, and were cast into the farthest oceans,
even there the hand of God would lead you,
and his right hand would hold you and support you.
If you say, "The darkness covers me, even the light still feels like night,"
the darkness isn't darkness to him.
The darkness is as bright as the day to him. (see Psalm 139:7ff)

This Advent season reminds us how to pray, to whom we pray, and in whose name we pray.

Jesus came into this dark world to be our light.
He came with all the promises of God (2 Corinthians 1:20),
and said he would never leave us or forsake us (Hebrews 13:5; Deuteronomy 31:8; Joshua 1:5).
Jesus came to hear all our groanings, to shower us with his love, and to bathe us in his grace.

So let's go, shall we,
and pour out our hearts before him.
He is a refuge for us.
(Psalm 62:8)