“O God, listen to my cry! Hear my prayer! From the ends of the earth, I cry to you for help when my heart is overwhelmed. Lead me to the towering rock of safety,” Psalms 61:1-2 NLT
Every parent has to learn to listen, learn and decipher the “cry” of their child. Not every child cries the same and certainly not all children express their pain, discomfort, need, or even boredom the same way. Some cry immediately and are excellent communicators of uncomfortabiliity. I remember Dr. Karyn Purvis teaching on childhood traumas saying, one of the first things babies need to learn is “I cry, you come.” It is vital to establish trust in littles that there is someone bigger, helpful and listening. She said, “babies orphaned with no human contact quit crying because they learn that no one will come.” Infant orphanages in some foreign countries are silent 😢.
Then there are those children (toddler age) who quickly learn to vary their cries to more or less leverage the drama to, you know, sway the situation in their favor. Real cries, real tears, real emotions – yet not all cries need the quick response of first aid or first hugs. We have a couple of grand-toddlers and they cry when frustrated, hungry, tired, curious, or just want something they want and want it immediately! Oooo, and when they can’t IMMEDIATELY have the object of their desire, they throw the biggest fit, with a wonderful water show and lots of flailing of body parts!
Even though we are no longer babies or most of us may have grown out of the spiritually “toddler phase” or our relationship with God, it is so good to read David’s prayer and learn to pray it ourselves. “Listen to my cry!” And God does. We have a whole slew of actual needs happening in us or around us all-the-time. We hurt or someone close to us is in pain (physical, emotional or spiritual) and WE CRY. Notice, we don’t CONTROL anything, we just cry. Ah, but we don’t cry like someone abandoned as orphans, we cry knowing that God, our Father, hears and deciphers our need and will respond! Try this for yourself, cry out “God HELP! I am overwhelmed.”
By the way, the “towering rock of safety,” was likely the shepherd’s lookout tower. Outside of Jerusalem there’s a very famous one. This is the tower that the highly skilled, and trained shepherds would “tend” the sheep. The tower was a place they would take the newborn lambs to clean them up and keep them warm and toasty. They would also bring injured lambs to nurture them back to health. It was from this tower the shepherds had the most extraordinary annunciation every when one night, an angel of the Lord came and told them, “I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people. The Savior—yes, the Messiah, the Lord—has been born today in Bethlehem, the city of David!”
For years God heard our agonizing cries bearing the grief of our own sin and living in a war-torn battlefield of suffering and He answered. Somehow, I think David, the author of this Psalm knew the day would come when a rescuer would arrive, the promised Messiah.
Prayer
Dad,
I know you hear every cry and see every tear. You even said you collect our tears, knowing how deep our pain goes. And, I know you are working in us, through us, constantly. Through the great times of rejoicing and the necessary times of suffering, you are right there. Thank you for hearing our cries, seeing our suffering and coming near to comfort and give insight and wisdom in tough times.