Today I have been reading Psalm 102. The Bible shows us the whole range of the human condition, and the depths of suffering, sorrow, loneliness, and pain.
The vivid images of the Psalmist express the personal and communal experience of the cry that pours forth from the human heart at the recognition of its own poverty. The heart discovers its inadequacy--and the insufficiency of all things to meet its needs--most powerfully in "the day of my distress."
Still, the heart cries out because the human expectation for fulfillment is more fundamental. The heart cannot help but search, and the heart that knows the goodness and the glory of God keeps hope alive even in the most incomprehensibly desperate circumstances.
But it is not enough for the Lord to hear our cries from a distance. His glory is in His mercy, and so he answers our prayer by coming to share our poverty, our lowliness, our distress, our groaning, our death--to transform suffering through His love.
By the light of this love, we must never give up seeking Him; we must always keep hope alive.
"Lord, hear my prayer;
let my cry come to you.
Do not hide your face from me
in the day of my distress.
Turn your ear to me;
when I call, answer me quickly.
For my days vanish like smoke;
my bones burn away as in a furnace.
My heart is withered, dried up like grass,
too wasted to eat my food.
From my loud groaning
I become just skin and bones.
I am like a desert owl,
like an owl among the ruins.
I lie awake and moan,
like a lone sparrow on the roof.
My days are like a lengthening shadow;
I wither like the grass.
But you, Lord, are enthroned forever;
your renown is for all generations.
You will again show mercy...[,]
heeding the plea of the lowly,
not scorning their prayer."
not scorning their prayer."
~Psalm 102:1-8, 12-14, 18
