Look Away From Me

Hear my prayer, Lord,
    listen to my cry for help;
    do not be deaf to my weeping.
I dwell with you as a foreigner,
    a stranger, as all my ancestors were.
Look away from me, that I may enjoy life again
- Psalm 39:12

David gives us a great example of theological deconstruction in this psalm. He’s tired of God not answering him, so he tells God so! This is David who was “a man after God’s own heart” and who wrote dozens of Psalms of praise about God’s goodness.

But those days come when all our good theology just isn’t working for us. And in those moments, what God actually wants us to do is to talk about. That’s called prayer. This is the sort of New Wine that Jesus talked about in Luke 5 - this kind of raw honesty with God, where you tell God you feel distant, where you tell God you feel mistreated, where you tell God that he’s not doing a very good job running the universe!

As strange as it sounds, this kind of prayer is an expression of deep trust - because, as opposed to saying the ‘right’ religious thing, we’re giving God our true hearts, ugliness and all.

Take some time today to have an honest conversation with God.