From the Depths

From the Depths

The De Profundis — 'Out of the Depths' — has been sung by the church in its darkest moments for millennia. Luther wrote his great hymn 'Out of the Depths I Cry to Thee' from this psalm. It was sung at the graveside services of Christians throughout the ages, acknowledging the reality of depth-experiences while affirming the reality of God's hearing ear. A hospice chaplain described praying Psalm 130 with dying patients: 'I have never met a person at the end of their life who had not cried from the depths at some point. When I read them this psalm, something in them always recognizes it: yes, from the depths. And yes, God hears.'

Psalm 130:1 is the most honest prayer possible — the cry from the very bottom. The Hebrew mamakim (depths) describes the deepest place, the bottom of the sea — a metaphor for the most extreme distress. The psalmist does not pretend to be somewhere other than where he is. He prays from the bottom. And the conviction expressed in verse 2 — 'Let your ears be attentive' — is the prayer that God's attention is available even in the depths. The God of Scripture is not a God encountered only on the mountain tops; He is explicitly attentive to the cry from the depths. Your worst place is not outside His hearing range. Cry from wherever you are. He hears.