Psalm 61:1  “Hear my cry, O God; listen to my prayer.”

This psalm begins with crying and ends with singing. “Hear my cry,” David mournfully commences and enthusiastically concludes, “I will sing.” Night is turned to day; darkness to light; sorrow to joy; gloom to sunshine. Instead of the thorn comes the fir tree, and instead of the brier comes the myrtle tree. The oil of joy banishes mourning, and the garment of praise does away with heaviness.

How did this delightful transformation come about? The secret of turning sorrow to joy is surely craved by us all. Look at this Psalm, and learn the formula.

Before David’s crying was turned to singing, it was turned to praying. Scarcely has David begun with “Hear my cry, O God,” before he adds, “Listen to my prayer.” His crying turned instinctively to praying. He spilt his tears in the lap of his God. He felt he could not praise, but he could pray.

Sorrows are angels in disguise when they cause us to pray. Troubles, instead of being millstones round our necks, can be Jacob’s ladder up to God. Trials may be stepping-stones to blessing. Nothing is really ill which brings us nearer to God. It is always a good wind which blows the sailor into the desired harbour.

We may learn much from David’s example here. In this brief ode from his pen, we see the ‘how’ and the ‘when’ and the ‘where’ and the ‘why’ of prayer.

First, the how. “From the end of the earth I call to you.” (v.2) So David’s praying here was quite elementary in form. There is nothing eloquent about crying. James Montgomery’s lovely hymn says: “Prayer is the simplest form of speech That infant lips can try.” But crying is even more elementary than that! It is not even the simplest form of speech; it is only an infantile substitute for it.

Yet God understands the cry of His child even better than the most knowing mother understands the cries of her baby. David’s prayer, also, was evidently very earnest in character; for usually such a cry indicates deep feeling, sudden extremity, or intense emotion. Many a stricken conscience, many a mourning disciple, many a harassed saint, has found relief in ‘cries’ to God when the mind was too overwhelmed to find ordered sentences. There can be a cloudburst in a sob; a whirlwind in a sigh; an ocean in a tear; a world in a word; a heaven or hell in just one cry!

What’s more, David’s prayer seems to have been repeated. Notice how that word ‘cry’ in verse 1 reappears in verse 2. On the heels of the first cry comes a second. In the original, the word ‘cry’ in verse 2 is not the same as in verse 1, but they are both cries. There is need for a deeper calling to God.

I recall a mother once writing how easily she had become able to interpret the different cries of her baby – whether of pain, or hunger, or discomfort, or petulance. How much more does our heavenly Father understand the cries of His children Fellow pilgrim – never doubt it: every cry of your heart is perfectly understood and interpreted in heaven.