PODCAST

No Angel Talk

December 22nd, 2011

RG AUDIO 122211Psalm 89:38-52

Can you imagine telling God something that the Lord is too delicate to hear? Whatever your response, the Hebrew psalmist suffers no anxiety whatsoever regarding God’s capacity to withstand any barrage of criticism, grumbling, or invective. Trained to regard prayer as something practiced quietly by polite, submissive believers this comes as a shock, but the truth is that biblical prayer is definitely not an exercise in angel-talk! Instead, our text trains us to lift voices in complaint and lamentation, with nothing less than raw, unedited appraisals of our current conditions envisioned as prayer. Maybe speaking harsh truths to God encourages us to waste no further time grumbling to others.

God has been listening! Ours is the God who cannot resist the cry of creatures in pain.