“My eye grows dim through sorrow; every day I call upon you, O LORD; I spread out my hands to you… Help me, O LORD my God; save me according to your love” (Psalm 88:9; 109:26). Such words pierce through the clichés and chatter about religion, theology, and so on, voicing the lament of a soul in trouble, desperately crying out to God for help… The language of prayer is often quickened by affliction and trouble, for the heart senses it must find God or die. “The troubles of my heart are enlarged…” (Psalm 25:17). “Heal me, O LORD, and I will be healed…” for if you will not help, O Lord, then I will perish; I will be consumed in my grief, I will waste away in the void of darkness… “Why is my pain unceasing, my wound incurable, refusing to be healed? Will you be to me like a deceitful brook, like waters that fail?” (Jer. 15:18). O Lord, “I am poor and needy; my heart is pierced within me” (Psalm 109:22). During hours of pain or mental anguish prayer becomes spontaneous, raw, unscripted and devoid of empty words. Anguish moves us right to the point, bypassing other concerns, distilling the heart’s cry for God’s help. If you feel overwhelmed, pour out your heart in prayer… It is not the words of the prayer that matter as much as it is the fervor, the intensity of the heart, and the passion that yields itself before God. “Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted” (Matt. 5:4). “The LORD is near to the broken of heart and saves the contrite of spirit” (Psalm 34:18).
Hebrew Lesson:
