Listen

Lord, listen to my voice when I cry out— have mercy on me and answer me! Come, my heart says, seek God’s face. Lord, I do seek your face! Please don’t hide it from me! Don’t push your servant aside angrily— you have been my help! God who saves me, don’t neglect me! Don’t leave me all alone! Even if my father and mother left me all alone, the Lord would take me in.

Psalm 27:7-10

Think

Following Mother Teresa’s death in 1997, personal letters emerged revealing that throughout her ministry she often distrusted that God heard her prayers or even existed at all.

Likewise, the psalmist here doesn’t appear very trusting of God’s willingness to show up and save the day. But maybe the psalmist, as well as Mother Teresa, was exercising a different kind of trust, a deeper kind.

Theologian Peter Rollins says that many religions hold a place for doubt, but what is so fascinating about Christianity is that even God doubts God. At the cross, Jesus cries out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

So when you express doubt, when you feel like God isn’t there, when you cry with the psalmist, “Don’t neglect me! Don’t leave me alone,” you’re joining with Jesus himself as a true acquaintance of the cross.

This requires a deeper trust — a trust that God will accept a real prayer, a trust that God is God and can handle your concrete and messy faith, and a trust that God is just that relentless in giving grace.

Blake Tommey

Pray

God of the cross, accept a real prayer from me today. Sometimes it’s so difficult to trust that you hear me and that you’re even there. But I’m trusting that you will receive my gritty, messy faith and that, especially in times of darkness, your grace keeps on coming. Amen.

Go

Act. Laugh. Breathe. Stand. Free. Doubt. Root. Trust.