Answer me when I call, O God of my right!
You gave me room when I was in distress.
Be gracious to me, and hear my prayer.Psalm 4:1
Books of the Bible don’t need catchphrases. But if you had to pick one for Psalms, you could do worse than “you gave me room.”
Many popular English versions (NIV, ESV, NASB) simply translate the Hebrew as something like relieved me from my distress, but the Revised Standard Version turned the King James’ enlarged me into gave me room, and I’m glad the NRSV has stuck with it.1 That phrase describes so well the grace that God always gives us to those who pray: not necessarily the answer we desire, but the space to speak honestly and trust that we’ve been heard.
In prayer, God gives as man as powerful and prickly as David the room to vent about perceived slights to his honor (v 2). But as surely, the same God gives the powerless and penniless of David’s or any other kingdom the room to cry out from distresses more acute than shame. For that matter, God hears the pleas of the hungry, but also the yearning for “gladness” of a king who takes abundant “grain and wine” for granted (v 7).
In prayer, God gives David the room to complain about those who “love vain words and seek after lies” (v 2). But perhaps God also gives all of us sinners enough room to speak that we begin to hear our self-deception and recognize our vanity.
In prayer, God makes room for our anger and sorrow, our confusion and certainty, our arrogance and our humiliation, our insecurity and our inability.
And room for our silence, too. For God is still listening in those moments when our distresses surpass the limits of language, and we can do no more than “ponder it on your beds” (v 4), then “lie down and sleep in peace” (v 8).
Whatever distress you need to convey, in however many — or few — words as it takes, God makes room for them in prayer. So “put your trust in the Lord” (v 5) who will surely hear your prayer.
Next week’s lectionary readings: Psalm 23; John 10:11-18; Acts 4:5-12; 1 John 3:16-24.
See also Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase in The Message: “When I call, give me answers. God, take my side! Once, in a tight place, you gave me room; Now I’m in trouble again: grace me! hear me!”