Daily Devotional for Small Group Discussion: The Cave

by Kaji Dousa | published on Sep 7, 2020

Discussion Questions

  1. How does your faith community make space for people to lament, individually and collectively? How has this space been reshaped during the pandemic?
  2. As the author asks: if lament is not your song today, how can you call into a cave where someone else is waiting?
  3. If you are in the cave, where are you able to raise your lament and have it recognized, honored, comforted – not dismissed?
  4. A “cave” like Psalm 142 is not necessarily a suicidal space, but if you or someone you know is in an emergency, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-TALK (8255).

The Cave

I cry aloud to the Lord; I lift up my voice to the Lord for mercy. I pour out before him my complaint; before him I tell my trouble. – Psalm 142:1-2 (NIV)

Psalm 142 is a prayer of David offered from the time “when he was in the cave.”

Are you in the cave, too? Is someone else who you know there, too?

We all find our way into the cave at one time or another. We all find ourselves in places where we find no light but the match we cannot seem to find. There is a mouth to the cave, there is an exit. But is it safe to go? The responses that others offer us in our laments help us to know whether or not the world outside the cave is a place where we will be embraced.

If a lament is not your song today, how can you call into a cave where someone else is waiting? If you are in the cave, where can you call knowing that your “complaint” will be honored rather than ignored? If you are in church leadership, how can you help to make room for every bit of this?

No matter what the people around you do, know that – cave or not – God embraces it all. You are honored, beloved and known.

Prayer
“Set me free from my prison, that I may praise your name,” O God. For in you, we find our true freedom, the opening of the gate, the mouth of the cave. Help us into your promised land. Amen.

dd-dousa.jpgAbout the Author
Kaji Douša is the Senior Pastor of The Park Avenue Christian Church, a congregation of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and the United Church of Christ, in New York City.