Verse of the Day for June 7

It is striking how the righteous are described here. Not as people who stand tall or never waver. The righteous cry. That is the first thing we are told they do.

No shame is attached to it. The cry is not a failure of faith. It is the faith. and the LORD heareth follows straight after, with nothing in between, no waiting period and no test to pass.

Verse eighteen sharpens it. The LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart. Nigh means near. Broken people are not sent to the back of the queue. They are the ones he stands closest to.

Courage in the work at hand often looks like this. You keep doing the job, and you cry out while you do it. The nurse finishing a double shift after a hard death on the ward. The trader opening the stall when sales have been bad for weeks. The student going back to the textbook after failing once.

You do not have to stop crying out to keep working, and you do not have to stop working to cry out. Tell him about it on the way. He hears.

Crying out to God in the middle of your work is not weakness, it is the very thing this psalm describes.

If your heart is broken today, the psalm says that is where he stands closest.