1st Thursday of Lent (February 22). You know

Prepare to Listen.  Answer me, O LORD, for your steadfast love is good.
 
Prayerfully Read Psalm 69:16-21
16Answer me, O LORD, for your steadfast love is good;
   according to your abundant mercy, turn to me.
17Do not hide your face from your servant,
   for I am in distress—make haste to answer me.
18Draw near to me, redeem me,
   set me free because of my enemies.
19You know the insults I receive,
   and my shame and dishonour;
   my foes are all known to you.
20Insults have broken my heart,
   so that I am in despair.
I looked for pity, but there was none;
   and for comforters, but I found none.
21They gave me poison for food,
   and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.
 
Prayerfully Wonder and Reflect
You know complains the pray-er in this long lament psalm.  Whether the words are evidence of trust in the God “before whom no creature is hidden”,[1] or frustration that God, who knows, has failed to help the troubled pray-er, is unclear.  What do you think?
 
Whatever the pray-er thought, and perhaps it was a bit of both, the complaint is rooted in God’s steadfast love.  This is the most frequent term used in the Old Testament to characterize God and how God acts.  It’s a translation of the Hebrew hesed, a term rich in meaning and difficult to translate into English.  Hesed refers to a love that knows no limits, that stands in solidarity with the one in need, making transformation possible.  It’s the love we see in Jesus when he stood in solidarity with all humanity, suffering death on the cross and setting us free to live changed lives.
 
The pray-er knows this about God, but in her present circumstances—insults that have broken her heart, brought her to despair, made worse because no one comforts her—God’s hesed­ seemed absent, God’s face hidden from her.  I know Christianity has always applied these verses to Jesus on the cross.  And they certainly fit Jesus' suffering.  But they were also real for all those who prayed and still pray this psalm in their own times of struggle and suffering.  If you’ve experienced anything that has made you feel abandoned, not only by family and friends but also by God, if you can identify with the psalmist’s complaint, you know something of what Jesus went through on the cross.  Like Jesus, like the psalmist, we can honestly lament (complain) because God knows and God’s steadfast love will be experienced yet again.

How do you feel about the psalmist’s honest and frank complaint?
 
Prayerfully Respond
Lord, you know; you know the good and the bad we experience.  For all those in need today, who feel despair with no one to support them, may you come to them and let them know your steadfast love.  Amen.
 
Live obediently.  Trust God’s steadfast love.
[1] Hebrews 4:13.