Daily Devotional for Small Group Discussion: From Your Lips to God’s Ears

Discussion Questions

1. What is tugging at your heartstrings today? Whose cry are you hearing?
2. What do you need care for? What are you crying out about?
3. When have you known God’s love for you specifically?

I love you, O Lord, my strength. The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer, my God, my rock in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. … In my distress I called upon the Lord; to my God I cried for help. From God’s temple God heard my voice, and my cry to God reached God’s ears. – Psalm 18:1-2 & 6 (NRSV)

I was sitting in the sanctuary one morning trying to practice centering prayer, a form of prayer in which you empty yourself of thoughts and just rest in the presence of God.

But I didn’t feel restful. I felt agitated, anxious, afraid. Things were bad and had been for weeks. I hadn’t been sleeping well. I was always on the verge of tears. I needed some peace. I needed to stop thinking about the issue I spent every moment thinking about.

So I tried again to settle my mind. I breathed deeply and attempted to release the thoughts as they came.

And then, outside, a child started crying. From the sound of it, a preschooler who refused to be consoled.

As a parent, it pulled at me. The longer it went on, the more I felt a primal urge to scoop them up and make sure they were OK.

That’s what we’re evolved to do, I realized: to cry and to respond.

It was what I had been doing too. Crying out. And if my own instincts were to care for that child, how much more would God desire to scoop me up? If I am made for love, how much more the one who made me?

Prayer
God in your love, hear my prayer.

About the Author
Vince Amlin is co-pastor of Bethany UCC, Chicago, and co-planter of Gilead Church Chicago, forming now.