Sabbath Devotional: God is Willing to Hear Us

Every time I’ve come to write this, I’ve found myself stymied. Blocked. Thwarted by paralyzing indecision. This is unlike me. I’m a woman of many words. Quite a few people have lived to regret benignly mentioning birds or the Norman invasion or, heaven forbid, regulatory systems for energy monopolies, while in my presence. 

But here’s the thing. Because of things like work flow and not wanting Julie to be annoyed with me, I have to write this before the midterm election, but you won’t read it until after. The election — in my life and work specifically, but likely in yours too, if you’re reading this — has loomed large over the last few months, if not the last year. My concern is less about election outcomes and more about processes and checks and whether the systems work as designed. For better or worse, or maybe both, we’ll be in a different place a week from now. And that seems fraught. The chances that I’ll say something today that will be unhelpful or silly or overwrought or underwrought over a week from now seem high.

The election, of course, is not happening in a vacuum. Doesn’t it feel like everything is changing so quickly? Isn’t there a lot of noise? Don’t we have significant issues to grapple with? 

Over the last few years, I have found myself increasingly drawn to poetry. Humans have always found things to be too much, and so they have found ways to make more out of less. People have been writing poetry for thousands of years, and crafting oral poetry for even longer. There is something about using the right words instead of all the words. There is something about working within limits. Rhythm is grounding. Meter is grounding. Predictable forms are grounding.

I know, but hear me out.

This is why I like the psalms. As the Oxford Study Bible explains, the word Psalms refers to “the musical character of the psalms. . . as hymns or compositions to be sung.” There are several kinds of psalms, but the two I want to talk about are petitions and thanksgivings. Petitions generally have three parts: First, “an unadorned cry for help”; next, “a complaint, namely a description of a difficulty facing the psalmist”; and finally, “a prayer for rescue.” About 58 psalms are psalms of petition, and they can be bleak. Psalm 88 is an example:

O LORD God of my salvation, I have cried day and night before thee:

2 Let my prayer come before thee: incline thine ear unto my cry;

3 For my soul is full of troubles: and my life draweth nigh unto the grave.

4 I am counted with them that go down into the pit: I am as a man that hath no strength:

5 Free among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, whom thou rememberest no more: and they are cut off from thy hand.

6 Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the deeps.

7 Thy wrath lieth hard upon me, and thou hast afflicted me with all thy waves. Selah.

It goes on from there, but it doesn’t get happier.

On the other hand, there are also psalms of Thanksgiving. About twelve psalms are characterized as individual thanksgiving psalms. Psalm 116 is a thanksgiving psalm:

1 I love the LORD, because he hath heard my voice and my supplications.

2 Because he hath inclined his ear unto me, therefore will I call upon him as long as I live.

3 The sorrows of death compassed me, and the pains of hell laid hold upon me: I found trouble and sorrow.

4 Then called I upon the name of the LORD; O LORD, I beseech thee, deliver my soul.

5 Gracious is the LORD, and righteous; yea, our God is merciful.

6 The LORD preserveth the simple: I was brought low, and he helped me.

It goes on from there in appreciation.

Here, in scripture, are both grievances and gratitudes. And what I take from that is this: God is big enough to receive both. Wherever we are, in a future I cannot see, God is willing to hear us.

. . . . . . . .

Illustrations:

1) “Illuminated Psalm” by Elmer Kottcamp.

2) Istock photo meme

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Cristie Carter Bake is director of advocacy at Mormon Women for Ethical Government.