"O Lord, God of my salvation, I cry out to you by day.
I come to you at night.
Now hear my prayer; listen to my cry.
For my life is full of troubles, & death draws near.
I am as good as dead, like a strong man with no strength left.
They have left me among the dead, & I lie like a corpse in a grave.
I am forgotten, cut off from your care.
You have thrown me into the lowest pit, into the darkest depths.
Your anger weighs me down; with wave after wave you have engulfed me.
You have driven my friends away by making me repulsive to them.
I am in a trap with no way to escape.
My eyes are blinded by my tears.
Each day I beg for your help, O Lord; I lift my hands to you for mercy.
Are your wonderful deeds of any use to the dead?
Do the dead rise up & praise you?
Can those in the grave declare your unfailing love?
Can they proclaim your faithfulness in the place of destruction?
Can the darkness speak of your wonderful deeds?
Can anyone in the land of forgetfulness talk about your righteousness?
O Lord, I cry out to you.
I will keep on pleading day by day.
O Lord, why do you reject me?
Why do you turn your face from me?
I have been sick & close to death since my youth.
I stand helpless & desperate before your terrors.
Your fierce anger has overwhelmed me.
Your terrors have paralyzed me.
They swirl around me like floodwaters all day long.
They have engulfed me completely.
You have taken away my companions & loved ones.
Darkness is my closest friend."
Psalm 88 NLT
I have read this psalm many times because I read the book of Psalms a lot but this psalm always surprises me. It's one of the few psalms that offers no hope. It's just gut wrenching pouring out to the Lord with no hope or answers. The following is what my Life Application Study Bible footnotes say about Psalm 88.
88:1 Have you ever felt as though you have hit bottom? The writer is so low that he even despairs of life itself. Although everything is bad & getting worse, he is able to tell it all to God. This is one of the few psalms that gives no answer or expression of hope. Do not think that you must always be cheerful & positive. Grief & depression take time to heal. No matter how low we feel, we can always take our problems to God & express our anguish to him.
88:5 Our feelings may be as obvious & painful as those expressed by the psalm writer, but they are never the complete picture. In fact, our feelings are usually very unstable. When we bring our unedited feelings to God, we allow him to point out where they are incomplete. We are in trouble whenever we give our feelings divine authority or assume that God can't handle what we feel. Praying the psalms teaches us to bring God everything about us & trains us to experience his presence even when our feelings tell us otherwise.
88:13-14 The writer of this psalm was close to death, perhaps debilitated by disease, & forsaken by friends. But he could still pray. Perhaps you are not so afflicted, but you know someone who is. Consider being a prayer companion for that person. This psalm can be a prayer you can lift to God on his or her behalf.
I have really have to take small bites of this & chew on it because 1) sometimes for whatever reasons, I find it easier to wallow in my grief or depression than to cry out to God & let him show me what's really important & 2) it's painful to read this psalm let alone admit that I have had similar thoughts myself.
The last sentence of the footnotes is "strange" to me. I can't see myself lifting this psalm up as a prayer on someone's behalf because to do so is to share in just the pain...and not the hope...the hope we ultimately can only find in Jesus Christ. As we approach Easter, let us look for ways to share the hope of Jesus to a hurting, grieving, & depressed world.
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