An Honest Prayer

by Talitha Arnold | published on Mar 9, 2026

Discussion Questions 

  1. Read Psalm 39. Then read the devotional below, “An Honest Prayer.”  
  1. How does it help you to know you’re not alone in moments of distress or uncertainty?   
  1. Have you ever given thought to the supportive community that made Jesus’s ministry possible—his friends and disciples, but also his faith ancestors like the psalmist? 
  1. What prayer do you need God to hear today?  

Devotional 

Hear my prayer, O Lord, and give ear to my cry; hold not thy peace at my tears! For I am thy passing guest, a sojourner, like all my [forebears]. – Psalm 39:12 (RSV) 

I wonder if Jesus prayed Psalm 39 in the Garden of Gethsemane. He would have known the songs of his people just as he knew the Torah and Prophets. Only a few hours later, he would cry out Psalm 22 from the empire’s cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”  

So I wonder if that night, when he was alone, praying in the shadows of Gethsemane, Jesus remembered this psalm by someone who’d also found themselves lost in the valley of the shadow of death.  

We don’t know who that someone was. Tradition says King David, but it could have been anyone in deep distress, fearful of the future, certain only of life’s transience. “Let me know my end,” the psalmist cried. “Let me know how fleeting my life is!”  

The psalmist was also honest about all human life. Our days last less than the fingers of one hand, the psalmist wrote, our lives fade as quickly as a shadow or a breath. We’re all passing guests and strangers in a strange land. 

Psalm 39 prays a hard prayer. Yet I wonder if the depth of the psalmist’s honesty about life’s transience offered some comfort to the 33-year-old Jesus that night. I wonder if it helped to know that someone else had felt as afraid and confused as he did. Perhaps knowing they had walked their own lonesome valley gave Jesus the strength to walk his.  

I wonder if Psalm 39 can give us that strength, too.  

Prayer
Thank you, Lord, for hard prayers—and for the people who pray them. Amen.

Talitha ArnoldAbout the Author
Talitha Arnold is Senior Minister of the United Church of Santa Fe (UCC), Santa Fe, New Mexico. She is the author of Mark Parts 1 and 2 of the Listen Up! Bible Study series and Worship for Vital Congregations.