Penthos---Prayer of Tears

"O Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger
or discipline me in your wrath.
Be merciful to me, Lord, for I am faint;
O Lord, heal me, for my bones are in agony.
My soul is in anguish.
How long, O Lord, how long?
I am worn out from groaning;
all night long I flood my bed with weeping
and drench my couch with tears.
My eyes grow weak with sorrow;
they fail because of all my foes."
{Psalm 6:1-3; 6-7}

I can't remember the last time I was so filled with sorrow that my bones were in agony. What is it that is putting David (the writer of this Psalm) in such anguish? And is it something that should cause me to ache with anguish since I'm a slave to Christ? ....drench my couch with tears... That's some intense sobbing. I wish I could have the convicted heart of David. His conviction was so strong that he weeped and weeped to the point of agony. So often we just look at our sin as mess-ups that can be forgiven at the utterance of a prayer. It's so much more than that! Our sin is what killed Christ!! That's something to truly cry about! David knew this and grasped it. We should be so close to the heart of God that when we sin and hurt him, we want to cry like He does.
Now, in this Psalm I think the main reason for David's tears is that he is exhausted and beaten down by persecution and is crying out to God asking, How long??!! Have you ever been persecuted so constantly and strongly that you just burst out in sobs because you don't think you can take it any longer? That's where David's at. The evil that he sees around him breaks his heart. It breaks his heart because it breaks God's heart. David was a man after God's own heart, so much so that the things that made God cry, made him cry. How awesome is that? It's like, when someone hurts your best friend...even if they didn't hurt you directly, by hurting one you love so much they are hurting you. It should be like that with us and God.
I'm reading this book right now called Prayer by Richard Foster (amazing book), and in this chapter it talks about something called Penthos...a greek word basically meaning Prayer of Tears. Penthos literally means: a broken and contrite heart, inward godly sorrow, blessed holy mourning, and deep, heartfelt compunction. There are numerous Psalms that are written in this way. As I read through more and more of them, I found myself praying for sorrow! It sounds weird. But I realized as I was reading that this convicted, broken, inward godly sorrow type of prayer is just one more way to know and draw nearer to the heart of God. I want that. I want to drench my couch in tears, tears shed for my God.