NEW Today’s AMI QT Devotional is written by Andrew Kim who serves as the executive pastor at Tapestry Church in Los Angeles. Andrew, a graduate of Eternity Bible College, is currently attending Fuller Theological Seminary.
Devotional Thought for Today
“Honest to God”
Psalm 44:22-23
Yet for your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered. 23 Awake, Lord! Why do you sleep? Rouse yourself! Do not reject us forever.”
John 11:35 “Jesus wept.”
Throughout the biblical narrative you see people lamenting. The psalms are filled with honest poetry about their suffering, pain, and anger. Even now, it still surprises me how honest and raw they are in their writings. (Can you imagine telling God, “Wake up, sir!”). The authors do not filter out their deep emotions and replace it with forced Christian clichés that simply suggest that everything is well because God is good. They take the time to share and vent their deep-seated emotions to God. This is important for us to recognize. Walter Brueggemann writes that the lament writings are indispensable to the relationship between God and humanity. There would be a genuine loss of authentic interaction. It would make us robotic in nature if humans were not allowed to share their pains and anger with their Maker, and only be left with the option to praise God. That praise would be superficial and forced. A truly genuine praise is the product of honest dialogue with God, not robotic response.
In our passage today, we see the shortest verse in the Bible. “Jesus wept.” In context, Jesus is weeping because His dear friend Lazarus has died. It’s interesting because Jesus most likely knows that He will soon raise Lazarus from the dead and be with His friend once again. But He does not bypass the process of lamenting and grieving the loss. He goes through it to get to the resurrection of his dead friend.
Many of us are filled with anger, confusion, fear, and pain now. In moments like this, we need permission to feel these emotions and share them with God. Sometimes we feel that, as good Christians, our prayers must be filled with only statements of faith and praise. But God is not afraid of our raw honest thoughts. He wants them. He wants to process with us so that He might transform them into genuine words of praise. Let us come before God and be honest with Him. Whatever fears and emotions you might have, bring them into the presence of God today!
Prayer: Father, help me as I am filled with many emotions during this pandemic. It’s a difficult thing to process. I ask that your Holy Spirit help me to honestly voice my thoughts, and for You to provide me faith in You during this difficult time. Amen.
Bible Reading for Today: Isaiah 19
Lunch Break Study
Read Psalm 13:1-6: How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? 2 How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? 3 Consider and answer me, O Lord my God; light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death, 4 lest my enemy say, “I have prevailed over him,” lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken. 5 But I have trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. 6 I will sing to the Lord, because he has dealt bountifully with me.
Questions to Consider
- What is the emotional journey that the Psalmist goes on in this psalm of lament?
- How are you really feeling amid this pandemic?
- In what ways can you be more honest in your prayer life?
Notes
- The psalmist begins with an honest venting session. He expresses to God that God has been slow in providing comfort. However, that emotion is transformed into praise and trust in the Lord. It’s been my own experience that honest processing with God always leads me to a place of trust in God, through the work of God’s word and His Spirit.
- Personal response.
- The following is what Job said while he was enduring his trial: “God has turned me over to the ungodly and thrown me into the clutches of the wicked. 12 All was well with me, but he shattered me; he seized me by the neck and crushed me. He has made me his target (Job 16:11-12).
Evening Reflection
Take some time to come before the Lord with honesty. We are feeling many emotions and oftentimes the temptation is to numb those emotions through binge watching and social media. Take time to process and surrender them to Lord tonight.
During this shelter-in-place time, I have also had the chance to reexamine my habits. Two weeks ago, I realized my tendency was still to rush through things (though I had nowhere to be). I rushed through cooking, so my meals were still mediocre after weeks of cooking every day. I rushed to get ready in the morning and still wouldn’t use my electric toothbrush for its two-minute preset. Yes, I admit it – until two weeks ago, I didn’t think I had time to wait for my toothbrush to run its full course.
How was your time today? Did spending more time considering who God is and extending your time of adoration bring joy and gladness? Let’s ask Him for the grace to continue and have our souls be satisfied as we consider who He is.
In our culture—at least before the calamitous arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic—people have bucket lists: a list of great, fun, and exciting things to do, like skydiving or kayaking off of a waterfall before you die or “kick the bucket.”
*Following God’s judgment that broke out against Israel, King David was looking to purchase a plot of land to build an altar to the Lord—as he was commanded by God—but when Araunah offered the king his land for free, David insisted on paying for it.
When I learned that shelter-in-place would go into effect, one of the first things I did was make a to-do list. I wrote down chores and hobbies that I “didn’t have time” for before. It turns out that having time was not the problem. Six weeks later, the bulk of what I’d hoped to achieve remains untouched. Instead, I have slept a record amount and watched more TV in several weeks than I did in the last several years. Subsequently, one of my most difficult challenges became processing the deep sense of guilt and shame I’d acquired for wasting this time.
Take some time to think about today’s topic. How do you feel about accepting God’s love? Are you more freed from guilt and shame? Let’s ask Him to continue to reassure us of His love and make it more of our reality for the days to come.
No one wants to be the last person chosen for a pick-up game.
A day can go by so quickly.
I will let others argue over whether the COVID-19 pandemic is God’s judgment—maybe it is or maybe it isn’t.
As you have been spending time confessing and repenting, are you experiencing the Lord’s grace—the freedom and victory that comes through His Spirit?
Returning to what we talked about this afternoon, at times, it is difficult not to feel like a hypocrite as we try to live out our faith.
There are many ways to respond to stress or sadness.
As you begin another week, what “distractions” or “noise” can you put aside this week so that you can better hear His voice?
You Just Don’t Understand, by Deborah Tannen, spent four years on the New York Times bestseller list (eight months at number one) because her discussion of the differences between the way that men and women engage in conversation touched a chord.