There are words that slip from the tongue with no weight at all—dust in the wind, breath barely formed. But some words, if we are still enough to hear them rightly, come with thunder. They break from the depths of the soul, trembling with fear or aching with hope. Among them is the cry, “Oh my God!” It is not a phrase meant for casual use, thoughtless exclamation, or fashionable irreverence. To do so is a violation of the 2nd Commandment, “You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God,” which we confess in the Small Catechism, “We should fear and love God so that we do not curse, swear, use satanic arts, lie, or deceive by His name, but call upon it in every trouble, pray, praise, and give thanks.”
Rather, it is a cry of the heart—born of anguish, desperation, or reverence—a prayer first uttered not in jest or profanity, but in blood, tears, and sackcloth. And it is in the Psalms, the prayerbook of the afflicted and the forgiven, that this cry finds its most sacred shape.
The Psalms do not treat the name of God lightly. They fear it, adore it, and cling to it in the night watches. When the psalmist cries, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me” (Psalm 22:1), it is not with flippant surprise but with a pierced heart, echoing that groaning of the Suffering Servant. These are not words to be tossed about. They are words soaked in the pain of abandonment and the hope of reconciliation. To say, “Oh my God” in lament is to stand at the edge of the grave and plead for resurrection. It is to look heavenward when all else fails, hands empty, heart hollow, and yet still daring to call upon the One who made the stars.
There is a weight to the divine Name that silences the jest. “Holy and awesome is His name” (Psalm 111:9). The Lord is not the punchline to a sentence. His name is not meant to accessorize our astonishment or profanity. He is not an interjection. The One who knit us in our mother’s womb deserves more than our half-hearted outbursts (Psalm 139:13). To cry, “Oh my God” without prayer is to use the sacred as if it were profane—to rob the holy of its robes and parade it naked for mockery.
Yet the very same phrase, when spoken in reverent need, becomes an arrow of the soul shot heavenward. It becomes the cry of David in his guilt, “Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Your lovingkindness” (Psalm 51:1); the one beset by wicked enemies, “Deliver me, O my God, out of the hand of the wicked, out of the hand of the unrighteous and cruel man” (Psalm 71:4); and the one who worships God in reverence, “Also with the lute I will praise You—and Your faithfulness, O my God! To You I will sing with the harp, O Holy One of Israel” (Psalm 71:22). It becomes the breathless prayer of the one who cannot go on unless God answers.
Even in the Psalms of praise, the use of God’s name is bound up with awe and trembling. “Bless the LORD, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless His holy name!” (Psalm 103:1). (Anytime you see “LORD” in the Old Testament, it is God’s actual name being used: Yahweh. In the Masoretic Hebrew texts, the vowels are altered so that it doesn’t exactly read “Yahweh” out of reverence for His name. Anytime a Jew comes to a Scripture that utilizes His name, instead they say “Adonai” out of reverence, which means “Lord.”)
God’s name is not spoken with a shrug but with bowed head and trembling voice. It is not dragged across the lips of a sigh of frustration, but lifted like an offering upon the altar of the heart. When the psalmists call upon God, they are not making senseless noise—they are making a plea, a song, and a confession. Therefore, so must we. “Oh my God” must never be emptied of meaning, for in it lies the breath of the penitent and the hymn of the redeemed.
In times of darkness, “Oh my God” becomes our deepest lament. It is the cry of the one drowning in grief: “I am weary with my groaning; all night I make my bed swim; I drench my couch with my tears” (Psalm 6:6). It is the voice of the betrayed: “All Your waves and billows have gone over me” (Psalm 42:7). And yet, it is also the voice of defiant trust: “O my God, I trust in You; let me not be ashamed” (Psalm 25:2). In lament, “Oh my God” does not accuse God of evil but draws near to Him as the only One who can help. The words tremble with longing and ache with the hope that He still sees, still hears, and still remembers.
And He does. He who inspired the psalmists to cry out also bent low to listen. The same God whose name is called upon in anguish is the One who saves. “I cried to the LORD with my voice, and He heard me from His holy hill” (Psalm 3:4). That is the sacred wonder of this cry: the God we address is not distant. He is not silent. In Christ, He took our cry into His own mouth. He bore our grief, spoke our lament, and filled “My God, My God” with flesh and blood and redemption. The words we dare not say lightly are the very words He said most truly.
Therefore, let us tremble when we speak His name. Let us reserve “Oh my God” for the times when it is prayer, need, wonder, sorrow, and thanksgiving. Let it be the sigh that breaks the silence when the diagnosis comes, the whisper on the lips of the dying, the cry of the mother clutching her stillborn child and the mother who’s miscarried, and the gasp of awe at grace undeserved. Let it be the reverent moan of the soul that has nowhere else to turn. Let it be prayer, and never parody.
For the name of the Lord is holy. When we cry, “Oh my God,” He listens. Let us not, therefore, waste that cry on anything less than reverence and trust in Him.
The Lutheran Column 