The emotion of honest words

There's plenty of things to love about the Bible, but I must admit that as I think it over, the Psalms are about as good as it gets for me.

Why?

The honesty found there from the writers, who don't have it all together, who yearn for more, who yearn for more honest time with their God.

What's striking about the Psalms is that they're real, brutally honest outpourings of emotion along the roller coasters of life. When times are good, Psalms speak out in great thanksgiving and celebration, but when life is bad, the emotions expressed are more candid than what you hear on Jerry Springer. Okay, maybe no on Springer, but certainly what you would have heard on Oprah.

 Because of this, anyone, no matter where we are in life, can relate to the Psalms. Psalms truly expresses the heart of prayer.

You swing on the emotions of writers who say, "I will praise the Lord at all times. I will constantly speak his praises."
To
"Lord, don't rebuke me in your anger or discipline me in your rage."
To
"Who will come from Mount Zion to rescue Israel?"
To
"Lord you have made my life no longer than the width of my hand. My entire lifetime is just a moment to you; at best, each of us is but a breath."

Okay, I admit it. I'm in a rut, a sinking spell, a momentary faltering probably attributed to my emotions about a birthday coming up that makes me as old as the number I had in football and my draft number... a number I never really thought I would reach that in less than a month I will.

I examine far too often my status, my understanding of where I am, and I understand that I truly have no one to talk to. I have no clergy mentor, with mine having died a few years back and no one ever took his place. I don't have -- to my discredit not theirs -- close friends in the ministry that I spend long minutes talking with about stuff. I have no one I can tell just how bad I am at times (just so I can be told how good I am, of course). I want so much for the churches that somehow I've been placed in charge of that I don't see us doing and I know it's my fault but I can't seem to get going to do anything to fix it. I'm in a rut.

But in these Psalms, I have a source that I sort of feel knows me and I in turn know. A person, a writer, or even persons and writers, who were out there in the fields wondering about all this stuff, who praised when the sheep were acting up and who lamented when things might have looked good to others.

The writer or writers of these blogs found in the Psalms, for that's what they are, are me, are us. They felt and they acted out and they worried, and they celebrated JUST LIKE US.

The beauty of the honesty of the Psalms is that they are just like us. And if you doubt it, read the 35th Psalm, "O Lord, oppose those who oppose me. Fight those who fight against me. ...I did them no wrong, but they laid a trap for me. I did them no wrong, but they dug a pit to catch me. So let sudden ruin come upon them."

That's honesty. I'm not there yet. Maybe one day...