SEPTEMBER 23, 2014
An
Emergency Of The Spirit
Read: 2
Samuel 1:17-27
David lamented with this lamentation over Saul and over Jonathan his
son. —2 Samuel 1:17
In March 2011, a
devastating tsunami struck Japan, taking nearly 16,000 lives as it obliterated
towns and villages along the coast. Writer and poet Gretel Erlich visited Japan
to witness and document the destruction. When she felt inadequate to report what
she was seeing, she wrote a poem about it. In a PBS NewsHour interview she
said, “My old friend William Stafford, a poet now gone, said, ‘A poem is an
emergency of the spirit.’”
We find poetry used
throughout the Bible to express deep emotion, ranging from joyful praise to
anguished loss. When King Saul and his son Jonathan were killed in battle,
David was overwhelmed with grief (2 Sam. 1:1-12). He poured out his soul in a
poem he called “the Song of the Bow”: “Saul and Jonathan were beloved and
pleasant in their lives, and in their death they were not divided. . . . How
the mighty have fallen in the midst of the battle! . . . I am distressed for
you, my brother Jonathan; you have been very pleasant to me” (vv.23-26).
When we face “an
emergency of the spirit”—whether glad or sad—our prayers can be a poem to the
Lord. While we may stumble to articulate what we feel, our heavenly Father
hears our words as a true expression of our hearts.
Sometimes I do not
pray in words—
I take my heart in my
two hands
And hold it up before
the Lord—
I am so glad He
understands. —Nicholson
God
does more than hear words; He reads hearts.
Insight
Although Saul had
treated David as his enemy, David did not treat Saul as his. When Saul and his
son Jonathan died in battle, David honored them in the song in today’s passage,
which opens and closes with the refrain “How the mighty have fallen!”
(vv.19,27).
Source:
Our Daily Bread 2012
