What do we do when it seems like God is not there? When it seems like God has closed up shop and isn't coming to the answer the door, especially when we need him the most? Psalm 8 addresses just these sorts of times. The psalm deals honestly with the pain and angst that comes when we travel through what the Puritans called "the dark night of the soul" or "the soul's wintertime." But it's from that honest place that this psalm then points us to the Lord and helps us see how we can in fact still trust in him, even in our most difficult troubles.
But first we start with lament (Ps 13:1-2). "Lament" is the word you use to describe what you feel like when you are slowly disintegrating and your world is falling in on you and all you can do is cry out to God, "How long?! How long?! How long must this go on?!" There are three things that bring David to lament in this psalm. First is God's seeming absence (Ps 13:1). Second is loneliness, naturally because God is absent (Ps 13:2a)). Third is defeat (Ps 13:2b), that sense that the enemy, whoever or whatever it is, has ultimately won the battle and stands in victory over your life.
Sadly, many people stop here. But lament is pointless and even pathetic unless it drives us even more to God. We must remember that the main issue here is, "Where is God?" Lament helps us express this honestly and even emotionally. But prayer is where lament begins to be worked out with possible answers.
So the next step in this journey must be prayer (Ps 13:3-4). It's important to see that this prayer emerges right out of the previous verses. In this prayer the psalmist is saying, "If I stay here in this place, I am overcome and fall down defeated and essentially "dead." The enemy will get the last word. This prayer is a cry out to God to not let this happen! God can't let the enemy win. He can't let the godless get the victory. And why can't he let this happen? It's because there is a relationship between God and the person praying. This is the important background to the prayer found in v.3. Notice what David says here. He is looking for answers not just from any God, he's looking for answers from "my God." While he can't figure out what God is doing, he knows that nevertheless God is the one and only place he must go to find support .
This is the one constant throughout this psalm and it gives us the direction we need to go if we are to get through the dark night of the soul. Frankly there are not many specific answers for why certain things happen to us. There are no clear answers, at least right now, for why some of us go through certain types of physical suffering or financial hardship or relational heartbreak or emotional pain. But our lament as we experience these things can still find a true and powerful resolution once we realize the powerful answer God has in fact given us. This answer is himself, and even more a relationship with him where we can see and know him for who he really is.
It's only when you've really seen and known God that you can end up ultimately in trust (Ps 13:5-6). Trust comes not so much from looking at your present circumstances but at the past. And what the past reveals is who God really is, namely, a God who is always loyal and committed to those with whom he is in relationship. To enter into a relationship with God is to enter into a commitment that God will never abandon. The Bible is full of examples of God's rock solid loving commitment to his people. Time and time again God has proven himself to be a God who saves and who will always save his people. He is a God who always has and always will do far more good towards those he loves than they could ever imagine or think.
It is in this God, then, whom we place our trust! It is in this God we can find hope and confidence and joy, for our hope and confidence and joy is based not on us but on him and our relationship with him. What's so great about this is that while our trust in God may be seem weak and feeble at times, it is still a reliable trust because it is based on God. The main question always is, have you put your trust in the Lord?
Remember, we trust in a Lord who knows what it is to cry out in lament. Consider the words of Jesus on the cross, "My God my God why have you forsaken me?" That is the cry of lament. This is the cry of someone who knows what it is feel abandoned, alone, and defeated. In Jesus what we are seeing is the Lord God allowing himself to be forsaken, to go through the dark night like we all must do, so that he might establish a safe path through that night. By following Jesus we can ourselves take that path and find a God in the end who we can trust and rejoice in.
Jesus is the key evidence of God's steadfast love towards us. Without the story of Jesus, we would not be wrong to say that life is dark and painful and meaningless. But with the story of Jesus, we can now say that while life is often dark, there is a light to help us walk through the darkness. While life is often painful, there is healing to help us endure it. While life often seems meaningless, there is in fact a bearer of life who has come and infused eternal meaning into our lives.
This is what the story of the gospel, the story of Jesus, does for all those who have believed in Jesus. Jesus gives our cries of "how long" power, because we can know for sure that God will and does hear our cries, and Jesus gives us our cries of "how long" confidence, and even joyful hope, because we can know for sure that God will answer them for our ultimate good in the end.
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