Psalm 77

Have you ever felt as if a trying season in your life would never end? Or that you cry out to God for an answer, but none comes? Or maybe you’re in a dry season. Even though you’re seeking God, it feels like it’s been so long since you felt His love, since you had a little sign from Him that He sees and cares.

You are not alone. These times of distress are part of everyone’s life on this earth.

I always find it comforting to discover that exactly what I’m feeling or going through is described in the Psalms. Someone said that the Psalms invites the whole range of human emotions into the presence of God. Don’t you love that? David and the other writers of these songs to God just laid themselves out before God — bare, unvarnished, just telling it like it was. They honored God, but they weren’t religious; they didn’t try to dress up their bare emotions with religious language. In their reverence for God, they spilled their guts to Him. They didn’t shut Him out of the “dark night of the soul” they were experiencing. Instead, they invited Him in.

I cried out to God for help;
I cried out to God to hear me.
When I was in distress, I sought the Lord; 
at night I stretched out untiring hands 
and my soul refused to be comforted.
I remembered you, O God, and I groaned. . .

Will the Lord reject forever?
Will he never show his favor again?
Has his unfailing love vanished forever?
Has his promise failed for all time?
Has God forgotten to be merciful?
Has he in anger withheld his compassion?

Do you relate? Have you asked those question in your heart, maybe not even daring to whisper them aloud? In this Psalm, the writer almost shouts them!

A line that sticks out to me says, “I remembered you, O God, and I groaned.” Oh, I can relate! Sometimes it’s too painful to remember God in bad times — to remember the wonderful seasons with God, the love, the closeness, the insights, the tenderness. Oh, where is all that now? I groan when I remember what it was like in past seasons of God’s favor.

Yet, remembering is exactly how we move past the present pain; it’s exactly how we are comforted.  The way out is doing the very thing we might recoil at!

Then I thought, “To this I will appeal:
the years of the right hand of the Most High.”
I will remember the deeds of the Lord;
Yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago. 
I will meditate on all your works
and consider all your mighty deeds.

“The years of the right hand of the Most High” — don’t you love that phrase? So much time in our life history was spent enjoying the right hand of God — His great favor on us. So many good times, so many answered prayers, so many daily delights in Him, so many gasps at His goodness and faithfulness. The way out is actually remembering all those times, something that seems at first like it would open a wound, but actually is the healing balm.

What can you remember from the times when God was so real and close that you could hardly breathe? What about the stunning answers to prayers, even before you asked!? How about His mercy in even calling you — the amazing “broken road” that led you to Him? Or His work in you — how you used to be angry or bitter or addicted or even painfully shy, but now…. well, now, you’ve been transformed.

Dare to remember. Dare to rehearse His goodness, His works, His miracles. Roll them over in your mind. Recount them. Reread your journals. See how far you have come by His redeeming power. Consider the answered prayers from your past, the huge ones and the tiny ones. Thank Him for all the mighty deeds you’ve witnessed in your life. Then you will say with the psalmist, “What God is so great as our God?”

I double dog dare you!