Daily Devotional
"In my distress I called upon the LORD; to my God I cried for help. From his temple he heard my voice, and my cry to him reached his ears."
Psalm 18:6
David was not calm when he wrote this. The surrounding verses describe cords of death and torrents of destruction. What separates David from the remnant in Malachi is not the intensity of his distress. It is the direction of it. David cried to God. The people in Malachi talked to each other.
That distinction is not a small one, because Deuteronomy 6:5-7 had already told them what to do with their words. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and soul and might, and let these words be on your heart, and talk of them when you sit in your house and walk by the way and lie down and rise. The remnant was doing exactly that. Sitting, walking, lying down, rising, and talking. They had simply changed the content. Instead of discipling one another in the faithfulness of God, they were discipling one another in cynicism, and their children were listening.
This is why complaining feels so much like community. It gathers people. It creates agreement. It produces the warm sensation of being understood. But it manufactures no faith in anyone who hears it, and it slowly forms a whole household, a whole small group, a whole church, into people who assume God is absent. Lament has a direction; it goes up. Cynicism has an audience; it goes sideways.
The remarkable thing is that God was never unwilling to hear it. From his temple he heard David’s voice. The complaint was welcome. It was just never brought.
Today's Challenge
Think of the thing you have complained about most in the last month. How many times have you said it to another person, and how many times have you said it to God? If someone recorded the way you talk about God at your kitchen table, what would your children or your closest friends conclude about him?
Prayer
Lord, I have taken my grievances everywhere except to you. I have found people who would agree with me and called that comfort. You have been listening the whole time and I was talking to somebody else. Teach me to bring it to you first, honestly and without editing. Let my words build faith in the people around me instead of eroding it. Amen.
