AP

Psalm 102:0-2  A prayer of an afflicted person who has grown weak and pours out a lament before the LORD.  Hear my prayer, LORD; let my cry for help come to you.  Do not hide your face from me when I am in distress.  Turn your ear to me; when I call, answer me quickly.

(I know that with the loss of my resident proof-reader this year the number of typos in TQW has increased, but I just want to assure you that the verse numbers ‘0-2’ above is NOT a typo.  Many of the Psalms have a rubric at the beginning to help the reader understand the circumstances under which the psalm was written.  For some reason best known to the editors, English versions include this rubric in italics but do not give it a verse number as the Jewish scholars did for their Hebrew text!  In my student days I found this very frustrating, as did all my classmates, because when we referred to our RSV or NIV to assist in translating a psalm we had to remember to subtract 1 from the verse number in the Hebrew text to ensure we were getting the correct translation!  I thought it important to include the rubric of Psalm 102 in today’s TQW so, as a form of protest, I’ve included it as ‘verse 0’.  In the Hebrew text, today’s passage would be ‘Psalm 102:1-3’.  The Jewish scholars also treat the rubric as part of the divinely inspired ‘Word of God’, but it’s not clear what our English editors want us to think of its status.  (I’m glad I’ve got that off my chest – now to today’s Today’s Quick Word).

A characteristic of many of the psalms that I’m finding particularly helpful in my present circumstances is that they not only give me 

permission to be sad, but they also teach me how to lament.

Lesson number 1: It is NOT a sin, nor is it unusual, as a loved and redeemed child of God, to feel overwhelmed by affliction, to feel weak and helpless in the face of it, and to ‘lament before the Lord.’  We don’t have to put on a brave front before our fellow believers, to keep a ‘stiff upper-lip’ in the face of adversity and try to give the appearance that ‘nothing is wrong’.

Lesson number 2: Prayer is always the place to start (and finish) when we are finding it hard to cope with the life challenges that the good Lord has thrown up for us.  It’s OK to cry for help.  Looking at the eleven places in the Old Testament where this Hebrew verb ‘to cry’ occurs I get the impression it includes the desperate, even uncontrollable, shedding of real tears!  It’s not the word used in Psalm 6:6 – “All night long I flood my bed with weeping and drench my couch with tears.”, but I gather it’s the same idea.

Lesson number 3: It’s OK to be urgent, even a little bit impatient in prayer, just as Jesus himself taught in the stories of the importunate friend at midnight (Luke 11:5-10) and the perstent widow (Luke 18:1-8).  And let us draw comfort, in all our struggles with God’s often enigmatic Providence in our lives, from Spurgeon’s helpful adage: “God is too good to be unkind and too wise to be mistaken, so when we cannot trace his hand we must trust his heart” – and there are times when I am fully ‘trusting his heart’ in prayer with tears running down my cheeks!

– Bruce Christian