I am worshipping with a congregation that is not my own, a community of Christians on the far side of the planet. Though I am there primarily to learn and to worship, I cannot help but observe one of the members of the church as he sits just in front of me. His wife is pressed close to him on one side and a chair has been left vacant on the other. He rises with the rest of the congregation as the pastor speaks the call to worship. “Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us.”

“Because God is worthy of our trust,” says the pastor, “you can pour out your heart before him. No matter the circumstances of your life, you can trust him because he is powerful and he is good. So let’s join our hearts and voices together to sing of this good and powerful God.”
The musicians take up the first strains of the opening hymn and the people soon join in.

O worship the King all-glorious above / O gratefully sing his power and his love. / our shield and defender, the Ancient of Days, / pavilioned in splendor and girded with praise.

I observe that as this man begins to sing, he glances toward the door at the back of the room, his eyes searching for something or for someone.

O tell of his might and sing of his grace, / whose robe is the light, whose canopy space. / His chariots of wrath the deep thunderclouds form, / and dark is his path on the wings of the storm.

He sings a few more lines, then looks that way again.

Frail children of dust, and feeble as frail, / in you do we trust, nor find you to fail. / Your mercies, how tender, how firm to the end, / our Maker, Defender, Redeemer, and Friend!

The hymn gives way to a Scripture reading, then to reciting a creed, and still I can see that his attention is divided—divided between worship and watching, between the front of the room and the back.
The service continues with prayer and song and still I see him looking forward and back, still I can see his heart expressing praise while his face expresses expectation, longing, hope.
It is only after the service has ended and I can speak to one of the pastors that I learn why his attention has been so divided. It is only after the service that I learn what he has been looking for—or, better said, who he has been looking for.
His daughter has said she will come to church today. His daughter has wandered far but has said she is ready to return. His daughter who has squandered so much says she has learned her lesson. His daughter who has caused her father’s heart to ache has said that today she will soothe it. This man is looking for his daughter, his beloved daughter.
As time goes on and as the elements of the service pass by, the glances become less frequent and less hopeful. Unless I’m wrong, his shoulders become a little less straight, a little more stooped, for it becomes clear that this will not be the day on which the prodigal daughter returns. This will not be the day on which sorrow gives way to joy, on which weeping gives way to dancing. Though I do not know him and though we live worlds apart, I grieve with him and for him. I grieve as a brother in Christ.
I spend a fair bit of time with men who know loss, fathers who have laid a child in the grave. Some of them are grieving beloved daughters and I know they sometimes experience stirrings of jealousy when they see other fathers with their girls. It causes them to remember better times, to remember the pleasures of being father to a daughter, to long to experience it and enjoy it again. I sometimes feel like this too when I see fathers with their sons.
But in this moment, this moment in which the congregation takes their seats and the pastor approaches the pulpit, words flash into my mind, words I came across in an old book from long ago. The author pointed out that in many lives the sorrow over the living is greater far than the sorrow for the dead who have passed on to sweet rest. Far more often, he says, has his heart been moved to pity for the parents of a living sorrow than for the parents of a departed joy. There are some sorrows harder even than the sorrow of death, he insists, some griefs deeper even than the grief of bereavement. And while I find little benefit in comparing one kind of grief to another, I am certain the sorrow of watching a living child careen toward hell is every bit as sharp as the pain of losing a child, but knowing he is safely in heaven.
And so, “God save that girl” my heart whispers. “And pity her father, Lord. Bless that man and comfort the sorrows of his troubled heart.”

This sponsored post was provided by Burke Care, and written by Jim Burke, which invites you to schedule care today with a certified biblical counselor.

Open my eyes, that I might behold wonderous things out of your law. Psalm 119:18
Today, it is so easy for me to read this verse and conclude, “Oh, Father! You know how I want so badly to see the abundance of wonderous things in Your law. Please, continue to reveal Yourself to me!”
But…
In my twenties, I was not a Christian and I would have processed this verse completely in the flesh so I would be reading something like, “Make wonderous things known to me for my benefit and my glory; my kingdom come, my will be done!”
In my thirties, at the apex of sin being played out in my life, I would have looked at this same verse thinking I was reading, “Open my eyes so that I can get out of this dreadful situation I find myself in. Take away the consequences of my sin and make my life abundant according to the desires of my heart!”
In my forties, I would have had a more sobering response but still arrogant in my understanding. I would have interpreted this verse to say something like, “Now that you have rescued me, show me wonderous things that I can share with others so that they can be like me. You were so good to have saved me!”
In my fifties, humility would have begun to creep in, but I would have still been struggling not to hold onto my own efforts to work out God’s law. My thinking would be something like, “You have opened my eyes, I have seen wonderous things in your law that I do regularly. Thank you that I am not like that other guy!”
The Pharisee and the Tax Collector
He (Jesus) also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you; this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”— Luke 18: 9-14 ESV
Now my prayer each morning sounds more like, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” I am saved by grace, but I still sin. My identity is secure as a redeemed child of the Creator God. Yet, each day I sense my sin in new ways. With that I urgently cry out like a needy child “Abba, Father!”
God open my eyes today to see wonderous things in your law.
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He told me of a day he had awoken sick in his heart, sick in his soul. He didn’t know what to think, he didn’t know what to do, he didn’t know what to believe. After all those years of marriage, all those years of joy, all those years of living life together, his wife had gone to heaven and he had been left on earth. Though days and weeks had passed, still he was in the depths of despair.

He told how he had laid in bed for longer than usual that morning, remembering the years of her decline, the years in which illness had been an unwelcome but constant presence in their home. He thought of how weak she had become and how tired she had been—tired in body, tired in mind, tired in spirit. He thought of how, as she had approached heaven, she had gained an even deeper assessment of her own sinfulness, and an even deeper sorrow for it. The light of heaven, drawing closer in her mind, had given her such clarity. He thought of how often they had wept together—wept for what had been and for what would never be. He thought of her final day, her final words, her final breath.
Desperate to escape the turmoil of his thoughts, he got up, got dressed, and drove to a nearby park where he began to hike a familiar trail. He needed to be alone, but not alone—to be in nature where the heavens declare the glory of God and the mountains proclaim divine majesty. That trail led through deep woods and then up a long, slow incline. Little rocks skittered beneath his feet and great slabs of stone loomed to either side. Then, just before the trail began to loop back and return the way it came, it led to the cusp of a canyon cut like a deep gash across the landscape.
He told how for a time—it could have been moments and it could have been hours—he stood at the edge of the canyon, gazing into its depths, his mind still disquieted, his heart still downcast. And then, almost at a whim, he lifted his voice and shouted into the void, “Will you never be sick again?” And a moment later, first far in the distance and then closer and closer, the echo returned, resounding from rock to rock and crag to crag: “Never—sick—again!”
He shouted again, this time his voice just a little louder, “Will you never be tired again?” “Never—tired—again!” came the reply.
“Will you never weep again?” “Never—weep—again!”
“Will you never sin again?” “Never—sin—again!”
Mustering all the strength that remained, he shouted one more time, “Will you never die again?” And once more the echo returned from the canyon below: “Never—die—again.”
And as the echo faded for the final time, he was aware that the voice that had reached his ear was his own. But he was aware as well that the voice had spoken truth, that the voice had preached to his heart. For he knew that the echo of the canyon was the echo of heaven.

Inspired by the sermons of De Witt Talmage.