Cry for mercy. He hears you.
Have mercy on me, LORD, for I am faint; heal me, LORD, for my bones are in agony. My soul is in deep anguish . . . I am worn out from my groaning. All night long I flood my bed with weeping and drench my couch with tears. My eyes grow weak with sorrow; they fail because of all my foes. Away from me, all you who do evil, for the LORD has heard my weeping. The LORD has heard my cry for mercy; The LORD accepts my prayer.
Psalm 6:2-10
Cry for mercy. He hears you. – Women’s Devotion
When was the last time you wept?
Chances are it was not a convenient moment. You don’t have time to get all snot-nosed, red-eyed, and moany.
It’s preferable to stuff our feelings down and avoid a full-on weeping event not only for time’s sake—but because we don’t want to be seen that way. We don’t want to see ourselves that way. It’s safer to hide in the bathroom at work, let a few tears fall, and pull it together before anyone notices. Maybe a few tears leak out during the sermon or our voice gets shaky during a favorite hymn, but we clamp it down before it spills over. That level of exposure feels dangerous.
David does not hold back in the Psalms for fear of exposure.
“I am worn out from groaning; all night long I flood my bed with weeping and drench my couch with tears. My eyes grow weak with sorrow; they fail because of all my foes.”
Who are these tyrannical foes that exhaust him?
Sin. Death. The devil.
My sin. My guilt. My grief. My body that fails me. The world that desperately seeks to allure me. The devil that relentlessly tempts me, lies to me, and convinces me to despair. These are the enemies that press in and try to separate me from my God.
But David declares, “Away from me, all you who do evil, for the LORD has heard my weeping. The LORD has heard my cry for mercy; the LORD accepts my prayer.”
Weeping around others may feel unbearable. Perhaps we’re experts at convincing ourselves that our foes are under our tight grip. Exhale, sister. You are safe. God does not require a polished confession. He does not turn away in disgust. He hears us through hiccups and groans and exhausted prayers of, “Have mercy on me, LORD.”
Then he pulls us out of the darkness. I love the image of God pulling us out of the depths found throughout the Psalms. “He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. He put a new song on my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God.” (Psalm 40:2). Our God who sees us collapsed in the mud is the God who “redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion” (Psalm 103:4).
Prayer:
Dear Lord, thank you for the Psalms. Thank you for words that groan when we cannot, for images of pits and rocks and crowns that help us see what you are doing when we feel undone. Draw us into honest confession and steady us again on the firm ground of your mercy. Put a new song in our mouths. Amen.
Written by Ana Cherney
