Scripture for Your Inner Outcasts

Transcript

Speaker 1: Oh, my people, what have I done to you? Or how have I wearied you? Answer me!

Speaker 2: You are listening to Scripture for your inner outcasts. It's July 20th, 2026, Monday of the 16th Week in Ordinary Time. Today's guest presenters, doctor Jerry Crete, one of the co-founders of our parent organization Souls and Hearts and a clinical psychologist with his own private practice called Transfiguration Counseling based out of Atlanta, Georgia.

Speaker 1: Hey there. Good to be with you today. We have a reading from Micah and it starts with this stunning image. Oh my people, what have I done to you? Or how have I wearied you? And answer me. This is rather remarkable. God calling the mountains and the hills as witnesses, you know. And this line, this stunning line. What have I done to you? I want to just sit for a moment with the emotional texture of what God is saying here, because this isn't an angry God demanding compliance. This is a God who is grieving a broken relationship. There is lament in his voice. There is a reaching out. There is almost. And I say this carefully, reverently, kind of vulnerable quality to this plea. And so for you exiles listening, some of you may feel like God doesn't actually care about you or God didn't, you know, care enough to stop whatever trauma or whatever pain. Well, let's just sit with this. God is not in this passage indifferent. He's not demanding. He's not punishing. Right. You know, he's he he he recognizes there are parts that have gone underground that you as an exile, may have not felt like it was safe to trust God or it wasn't safe to be vulnerable with him. And so in this in this passage in Micah, God himself is showing us that he is aware of you. He's actually calling you to come back to the stand. He says, answer me. It's not a threat. It's an invitation. He's asking us to bring our honest experience. Might be anger, confusion, or exhaustion and lay it before him. How many of you exiles have never been given permission to say to God, you know what? I'm tired. I don't understand. I feel abandoned. What would it be like to speak that loud? This part of you, this exile, allow you to speak not to a God who will punish for this honesty, but this God that Micah describes, who says, come, tell me I am listening.

Speaker 2: Listeners can find more content from doctor Jerry Kriete, including a link to his book, The Litanies of the heart and the description of today's show. Thanks for joining us and we hope to see you again tomorrow.

Speaker 1: Mary, our mother Untier of knots. Pray for us. Saint Joseph, pray for us. Saint John the Baptist pray for us.