Cry Out To God!

PSALMS 4:1,3,8

Answer me when I call to you, O my righteous God. Give me relief from my distress; be merciful to me and hear my prayer.
Know that the Lord has set apart the godly for himself; the Lord will hear when I call to him.
I will lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.


Oh the days that bear great burden! Our cries can be heard from the highest mountain; our anguish sparks our energy to press toward God and cry out. Our wailing could be perceived as whining and complaining, self-defeat. Yet, we know to whom we cry out and for what purpose. David in the Psalms had his days of despair, days of wailing before God. Psalms 5: 2 says Listen for my cry for help, my King and my God, for to you I pray.

Our cries to God in our hour of need have purpose. God wants us to cry out to him. He is our Father. Our Father wants to share our pain. He wants to hold us in His loving arms.

The difference between whining and complaining and crying out to God is the purpose and end result. When we whine and complain we do nothing more than that. There is no follow-through to change the situation. We just want to be heard.

Crying out to God is deep travail. Travail means to labor in pain knowing that in the end you will reap something precious and beautiful. Most women will tell you that what kept them from going insane during the child birth process was knowing that after the travail the result would be a precious and beautiful baby. So it is when we lay before God travailing over a situation that has caused so much pain.

Sometimes we have to pray a situation through before we see the precious gift. I once heard a Pastor say something so profound that it has stuck with me for 20 years. He said when you are laying before God praying don't get up when you are through praying but get up when you have prayed through. We are a society that thrives on shoving everything into a day that we can. Therefore the important issues of the day do not get the proper attention needed. Sometimes a quick prayer isn't enough. We need to take time to lay before God and pray it through. It is in those times that God reveals things to us that we could not have seen if we hadn't taken the time.

How hard do we work to be able to buy that new house or new car? If our first job isn't giving enough to be able to purchase it then we add on another, and yet another. We move heaven and earth to buy that one thing. Yet, when trouble finds us and we find ourselves lying on our backs we tend to do one of two things. We either complain about it and do nothing or we say a quick prayer thinking that was all the attention necessary. Then we get mad at God for not meeting that need. All the while He just wants to spend some time with us so He can reveal some secrets, so He can see how bad we really want what we have asked for.

We are contending with a real enemy. Satan will not quietly sit back and allow God to give us everything we want and need. He will do everything he can to steal it before we get it. If we work 2 or 3 jobs just to allow a thief to steal our money before we can purchase our desires we would never accomplish our goal. We would just work ourselves to death. Yet how many of us would allow that process to continue? Work, be robbed. Work, be robbed. No, we would travail, fight for what is ours.

Let's put that same energy, even more so, into getting the promises God has laid before us. You need a financial blessing? Travail. You need healing? Travail. You need delivered? Travail. How bad do you want it? God Bless~