READ: Psalm 38:4-9 NLT
'My guilt overwhelms me—it is a burden too heavy to bear. My wounds fester and stink because of my foolish sins. I am bent over and racked with pain. All day long I walk around filled with grief. A raging fever burns within me, and my health is broken. I am exhausted and completely crushed. My groans come from an anguished heart. You know what I long for, Lord; you hear my every sigh.'
It’s an incredible privilege when someone is completely honest with you. David tells us exactly how things are in his life, and it’s not going well! He feels guilty, he’s in pain and he is emotionally crushed. You can hardly imagine anything worse. But the crucial fact is that, amidst it all, he knows that God hears him.
I love the expression that David uses when he writes “you hear my every sigh”. God doesn’t merely know when we are going through a hard time, but he picks up every detail of our distress. He is our Creator and knows us better than we know ourselves, so when we pray he is well ahead of us in understanding what is wrong and why we are struggling. In prayer we are informing God of nothing that he doesn’t already know, but it is still vital for us to open our hearts to God with complete honesty because in that way we are welcoming him into our situation and inviting his comfort, healing and restoration.
Every single human being has times of difficulty and distress in their lives. There is nothing remarkable about that. But what is essential is that we don’t hug our problems to ourselves. We need to come to God and be completely honest. It’s also important for us to be open with other Christians. That’s one reason why we need to belong to a church and know people with whom we can be completely honest. It wouldn’t be helpful to share our inner struggles with many people, but we do need at least one person with whom we can share the whole story – however awful and tangled our story might be.
QUESTION: With whom are you able to be completely honest?
PRAYER: Thank you Lord that you love me so much that it is possible for me to be completely honest with you. Amen.

Released on 14 Dec 2020