We were working on landscaping and other yard work on Saturday and the boys were playing in the yard. The afternoon was going well, when suddenly we heard a loud scream and a great cry emanating from someone on the back patio. Our son, Judah, had fallen down the stairs leading from the yard to the back patio, hitting his head and his knee. Judah is quite the dramatist and the screams and yells were expressive and painful to hear. As Nancy got to him and cuddled him in her arms, I was reminded of Psalm 40:1b, "he turned to me and heard my cry." Nancy had responded to her son's cry for help. Her response was to run to him and to hold him closely and reassure him.

I have found myself at various times in my life, feeling as though my prayers were hitting the ceiling and falling back into my lap. I feel as though they were not reaching or not being heard by God. It is not that I don't believe God listens or that God is somehow ignoring me, it is a struggle within me wondering if my prayer is "worthy" of being heard. It is when I realize the truth that God hears the cries and prayers of God's children that I am reminded that my prayer is being heard and that God is responding. Just as I mentioned last week, though, I have to be patient and trust.

When we find ourselves in those difficult times of life when we are "looking up to see bottom," it is easy to try to stop feeling pain and seek to just learn to "live with it;" whatever "it" might be. The problem with a life that suffices to quit praying, quit seeking, and quit living, is we are no longer waiting patiently for the Lord, but in reality we have given up on God. Tears, prayers, and persistent seeking of life, lead us to the place where we experience the fullness of God's goodness in our lives. Too often, I fear, we define patience as inaction, but what I sense the Psalmist sharing here, is an active life of feeling and expressing that feeling. In John and Stasi Eldredge's book, Captivating, they share a quote from Augustine's Confessions: "The tears...streamed down, and I let them flow as freely as they would, making of them a pillow for my heart. On them it rested" (Page 102).

No matter our circumstance in life, we can find peace in the reality that God hears our cries and, as we will see in the next part of this Psalm, he responds to our cries. We do not need to hide our pains, our fears, and our frustrations from God; we can cry out to God with our tears and God will hear our cry and lead us through.

Are you willing to lay your feelings bare before God? Are you willing to cry out to God that God might hear? Are you waiting in inaction and need to dig deeper in your life of seeking? Know today that patience is not inaction and feelings are not to be hidden in the presence of God. Live a life of seeking, crying, and patience as you move through all seasons of your life.

Prayer: Lord, in our fear and disappointment, we cry out to you. We know you hear our prayers even if we do not immediately sense your response. Give us the confidence to patiently wait while continuing to faithfully follow you. Amen.

P. S. Judah is fine; just a goose egg on his head and some skinned knees.