When You Have No Strength – Psalm 88
Psalm 88
A Song. A Psalm of the Sons of Korah. To the choirmaster: according to Mahalath Leannoth. A Maskil of Heman the Ezrahite.
1 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 to them.
I am shut in so that I cannot escape;
9 my eye grows 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.
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.
NOTE:
Today’s commentary is by Dr. Kevin Watson, who is coming to Tulsa to become the Director of Academic Growth and Formation at the Tulsa Extension Site for Asbury Theological Seminary, as well as joining our staff at Asbury Church as Scholar-in-Residence. I wrote a post announcing and explaining this move.-Andrew
One of the values we are seeing again and again in the Psalms is that they teach us to pray through our emotions.
Psalm 88 begins:
O Lord, God of my salvation
The rest of the Psalm does not quite fit with this opening line, as it is the cry of someone who seems to feel hopelessly lost and cast off by God and their closest friends and family.
Psalms 88 and 89 stand together at the end of Book Three as the darkest place in the whole book of Psalms. Both are prayers for help, and both end without resolution. Psalm 88 is the cry of an individual who feels as if God has not only abandoned her, but that God has caused her situation in the first place. The psalm’s message is shocking to modern readers who are unaccustomed to the frankness of these ancient prayers for help. - Beth Tanner
Many of these lines are shocking, indeed. Can you imagine, for example, saying to the Lord:
You have put me in the depths of the pit,
In the regions dark and deep.
Your wrath lies heavy upon me,
And you overwhelm me with all your waves. (v. 6-7)
The blame for the suffering the psalmist is experiencing is laid squarely at the Lord’s feet.
Perhaps you know what it is like to be in this place, where the only honest prayer you could pray to the Lord would be along the lines of Psalm 88. It can be uncomfortable to be in relationship with people in this place. It is common for people to try to correct those who are suffering and instead of staying present with them, arguing with their flawed reasoning. (The Book of Job is filled with examples of this from Job’s friends.)
I love the way Beth Tanner describes what it says about God that these kinds of prayers are included in Scripture: “It … speaks of God, a God who is Creator and King of the Universe and who also does not condemn honest, painful conversation with the humans God created – and in that it may represent better than other texts the love that God has for us, these earthly creatures.”
When you find that you have no strength, let this psalm be your prayer.
Even in the posture of lament and complaint at what God has done and allowed to be done, there is nevertheless a posture of faith and desire for relationship with God.