In My Distress...

In my distress I called to the LORD;
I cried to my God for help.
From his temple he heard my voice;
my cry came before him, into his ears.
Psalm 18:6

Yep. That’s right, cried. I did that today. The reason doesn’t matter so much now, because it was more the conglomeration of everything about the next two weeks than any one thing. But it happened.

You know what though? Crying wasn’t the end of the world. In fact, after the deluge the world looked better. I was able to talk things through with my mom, Ashley, and others. We came up with some practical steps to get through the next few days and worked to solve some problems that were driving me crazy. I did what I needed to do to take care of myself, and moved on with my evening. Incidentally, I felt better having cried and released the emotion than I would have felt if I carried it bottled up inside all evening. Crying out allowed me to let go.

Later I began thinking that life is sometimes like a Psalm. I learned in Old Testament class last semester that over half the Psalms are laments. Each one is David crying out to the Lord about his trials, frustrations, sins, and battles.

The lament doesn’t stop there, however. Proper form includes 1) a cry for help, 2) a description in detail of the problem and 3) a statement of trust in the Lord.

Our lives are the same way. We are often caught crying out to the Lord, asking him to help us and to deliver us from our affliction. Yet at the end of our prayers and frustrations we are constantly brought to the fact that God is the almighty, powerful, loving, just, and merciful Creator of the Universe. We can and should trust Him with every little issue.

Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no one can fathom.
He gives strength to the weary
and increases the power of the weak.
Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall;
but those who hope in the LORD
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.
Isaiah 40:28-31

I guess what I’m saying is that it’s ok to cry. David did. I did. Jesus did. We do.

 It is not, however, enough to stop at the cry. Nor should we just spew out every tiny detail of our problem to God (who ironically knows it all anyway). Rather, after doing both those things, we need to hand it back over to God, who had control all along, and let Him take care of it.

Sometimes the storm of emotions needs to happen, but grasp onto the supernatural calm after the storm. Have your cry, get over it, trust God, and move on.