By: Steve Loo
Ever been in a dark season where you have cried out to God to turn things around? Challenged him to act? And waited expectantly for your prayers to be miraculously answered only to hear God say...nothing? Ever feel totally abandoned, alone in pitch darkness?
I’ve been there. And I’d be willing to bet that you’ve been there too.
Thankfully the Lord didn’t give us all Psalms with Disney endings. There is a Psalm that is known as the “pitch darkness Psalm” – Psalm 88. When you look at this Psalm, there is no hope anywhere. When you look at how it ends, you cannot help but ask, “What is that doing in the Scriptures? This prayer is depressing. Where is the hope in this?” As theologian Derek Kidner writes in his commentary, “There is no sadder prayer in the Psalter.”
At the end of Psalm 88, after Heman the Ezrahite literally rips open his guts to the Lord, things don’t get better – they actually get worse. The Psalm opens and ends with him complaining to God. He asks, “Why have you cast my soul away? Why do you hide Your face from me? Afflicted and close to death from my youth up, I suffer your terrors, I am helpless. Your wrath has swept over me, your dreadful assaults destroy me.” (vv. 15-16) His last line strikes an ominous tone:
You have caused my beloved and my friend to shun me; my companions have become darkness.
Psalm 88:18
The ESV footnote translates that last line, “Darkness has become my only companion.” No spectacular Disney ending. Only darkness, where he finds himself even more utterly alone.
Why is this Psalm even in the Scriptures? How can the saddest Psalm in the Psalter provide us any hope? When we look at the progression of this Psalm, we see him cry out to God, challenge God to act, but God seems to ignore him. How does this even console any hurting Christian?
But I think what brings life from this Psalm is that there is room to feel pain, and to complain. There is room for complaint – as long as we bring our complaints before God. We complain and pour out our pain to Him, on the basis of who He is and what He can do. When you look back, you see the Psalmist crying out in this way: (v. 1, 9, 13). At first it seems like so much darkness. But the hidden hope in Psalm 88 is that he keeps on praying. “Even in the deepest hopelessness God alone remains the one addressed.” This a complaint, that very often takes the form of a lament. Lament, according to pastor Mark Vroegop in his book Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy: Discovering the grace of lament, is a prayer in pain that leads to trust. The fact that Psalm 88 made it into the Scriptures tells us there is a place for godly lament in gut wrenching complaints. Especially in times when God does not answer to our deepest prayers, and we are left alone in the darkness.
I believe that Psalm 88 validates us to complain to God, even when all we feel is pain. He wants us to take our struggles of feeling alone, forgotten even by God Himself – and to continue to take it to Him. It takes faith to lament. We see that the only hope at all in the Psalm – is that the Psalmist keeps praying at all!
In my situation, my prayers did not result in the clouds parting and the angels descending from the clouds. In fact things, got worse. We encountered real spiritual danger and deep pain. But what I learned is that I don’t need to try to hide those feelings. Or theologize it away. God wanted me to come hot and heavy, and lament. Bring my pain before Him. And to have faith to complain. Godly laments are not optional, they are vital.
I know that this post leaves you with some tension. Questions like, “Is it really right to complain before God? That’s not biblical. Shouldn’t we give thanks in everything?” But that’s fine, I’m going to leave it there. I simply challenge you the conception that all complaining is wrong. Complaints of “Why” and “How long” are all over the Scriptures – even on the dying lips of our Savior Jesus Himself. Are there any hard and painful questions you simply need to get out in the open before God now? It’s not that He doesn’t know already, He’s searched you and known you. Deeply. But perhaps in the midst of your complaining, it will give way to trusting God, no matter how pitch dark the season you are in.