What can you learn from the most grim chapter of the Psalms?
Uh, well, a lot.
Psalm 88 reads like this:
A Song. A Psalm of the Sons of Korah. To the choirmaster: according to Mahalath Leannoth. A Maskil[a] of Heman the Ezrahite.
O Lord, God of my salvation,
I cry out day and night before you.
2 Let my prayer come before you;
incline your ear to my cry!
3 For my soul is full of troubles,
and my life draws near to Sheol.
4 I am counted among those who go down to the pit;
I am a man who has no strength,
5 like one set loose among the dead,
like the slain that lie in the grave,
like those whom you remember no more,
for they are cut off from your hand.
6 You have put me in the depths of the pit,
in the regions dark and deep.
7 Your wrath lies heavy upon me,
and you overwhelm me with all your waves. Selah
8 You have caused my companions to shun me;
you have made me a horror[b] to them.
I am shut in so that I cannot escape;
9 my eyes grow dim through sorrow.
Every day I call upon you, O Lord;
I spread out my hands to you.
10 Do you work wonders for the dead?
Do the departed rise up to praise you? Selah
11 Is your steadfast love declared in the grave,
or your faithfulness in Abaddon?
12 Are your wonders known in the darkness,
or your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?
13 But I, O Lord, cry to you;
in the morning my prayer comes before you.
14 O Lord, why do you cast my soul away?
Why do you hide your face from me?
15 Afflicted and close to death from my youth up,
I suffer your terrors; I am helpless.[c]
16 Your wrath has swept over me;
your dreadful assaults destroy me.
17 They surround me like a flood all day long;
they close in on me together.
18 You have caused my beloved and my friend to shun me;
my companions have become darkness.
Pretty dark, right? While the Psalms house many laments, this one is particularly gloomy. Typically, there is some sort of light at the end of the tunnel woven into the words, however bleak the light may be. But Psalm 88 is nonstop misery, and a lot of it is directed toward God (v.14, for example).
For starters, this is a psalm ascribed to Heman. This man was a musician in David’s temple, which is no small feat, and is described as wise in 1 Kings 4:3. If this man is very blessed within his society and is incredibly wise, how can he have fallen to depths so low?
He speaks of his sin and God’s wrath in relation to it. He speaks of his friends repulsed by him (feels reminiscent of Job, doesn’t it? How everything is laid waste and he has nothing). This could maybe indicate he has a disease such as leprosy or is possibly because of a sinful act.
Either way, he pleads with God to hear his cries; he makes bold statements of the Lord’s terrors and assaults. He ends the psalm leaving the reader with feelings of deep anguish: “my companions have become darkness,” or in the NLT translation, “darkness is my closest friend.”
So, what can we draw from it? How do we react to this despairing scripture in a way that points to the reign and rule of God?
Even when Heman feels that God has abandoned him, has hid his face from him, he is still in relation with God. Speaking for myself, having a tough week, month, year (2020 I’m talking to you) does not make my relations with God stronger. I have a hard time focusing on anything but myself, and my prayer life suffers. When life is not going according to my plans, I definitely do not write a song to the Lord.
Heman pursues God in this psalm. He cries out saying, why, God, why? He does not back away from the Lord because he is miserable. He allows his misery to become part of the prayer, his confusion part of the prayer, his loneliness and abandonment part of his prayer.
Another thing I love in Psalm 88 is Heman’s emotion toward the Lord. While our emotions are not always truth (and should n e v e r be the driving force of decisions), God did give us these feelings. Heman does not come before God stoically hiding the depths of his heart. He lays it all out on the table for God to hear.
On the few occasions my prayer has looked like Heman’s, I find my emotions are more stable after talking with God. He is our truth and all that matters. Our trials may be absolutely awful, but God is the rock that fills us with joy. And that doesn’t change. It will never vanish. He will never leave us.
I’m grateful for Psalm 88 because it shows that a blessed and wise man felt deep anguish and expressed it to God. God asks for all of us, not just our happy prayers. We rejoice that our Lord is there when we want to sing songs of praises, but we should doubly rejoice that our Lord is there to listen to our most heartfelt laments.
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