SINGING THE BLUES
When you’re very young and life has been relatively kind to you, the Book of Psalms can seem a bit dreary and depressing. Ok, not just a bit, for some of us, they are completely off the rails! As you make your way through all of the poetic books of the Bible in your teens and early twenties, if you even dare to go there, you’re thinking… “Ummmm… exactly what am I supposed to be getting out of this exercise? This doesn’t even make sense half the time, and are we really supposed to be talking to God like that?”
However, by the time most of us begin cresting the top of that hill, entering our third decade on this old rock hurdling through space, the psalms begin to take on a whole new meaning. We've accumulated some scars of our own by that point, and are able to readily identify with the pain, suffering, and grief voiced by the psalmists. Life has a tendency to throw us a few curve balls along the way, and unfortunately, some of our fellow humans seem to delight in adding to the misery of everyone else. So it’s not surprising that we are almost comforted by reading of the sufferings of others who lived through it thousands of years ago. Especially when those poor souls of yesteryear are gracious enough to show us how to overcome the trials of life, by crying out to God in the midst of their struggle, trusting in Him to deliver and restore.
Of course the dilemma that we face today, is the question of why on earth God would have tolerated all of this to be incorporated into the pages of Scripture. But not only does He tolerate it, He has inspired it to be written in His Word, and this gives us a great insight into why it is so comforting to us when we are in dire straits. Try this the next time you are stumped in your understanding of one of the psalms of lament. Understand first that no matter what is being said in the Psalms, regardless of how outrageous it may appear to us in our current social order, it is ultimately being said by the Holy Spirit. Lamenting cries of anguish, sorrow, and discouragement which make their way from a bewildered heart, to the throne of God, and then to the pages of scripture, as divinely inspired, have been screened by God Himself. On the surface, much of the Psalms may just appear to be a random collection of; the depressing cries of weary souls in torment, the remorse-filled confessions of guilt-ridden sinners, and the angry outbursts of wrath from a king seeking vengence. But in actuality, they are a heart felt endorsement by God that He does hear our cries, and what’s more, He wants us to cry out to Him, as an expression of our faith in Him and worship of Him. These painful human expressions have been met with God’s stamp of approval and therefore they have an eternal purpose and reason for being included within scripture.
Consider Psalm 88, which follows this pattern of lament: “…O LORD, God of my salvation, I have cried out day and night before You. Let my prayer come before You; Incline Your ear to my cry. For my soul is full of troubles…” (NKJV, Psalm 88:1-3) Now, using the concept of reverse engineering, let us consider that, while the authorship of this passage is accredited to a man named, “Heman the Ezrahite”, we know that the Holy Spirit was actually responsible for inspiring him to write and preserve these words, in order to fulfill God’s purposes. So, If these are the words that God wants us to say to Him in our darkest hours, then He must have something to say back to us in those same words. With this in mind, look at the verses again, after the personal pronouns have been modified, so that the words are now coming from God Himself, to the heart who is crying out to Him: “…[I am] the LORD, God of [your] salvation, [you] have cried out day and night before [Me]. [I will] let [your] prayer come before [Me]; and [I will] incline [My] ear to [your] cry. For [I know your] soul is full of troubles…” Viewing the Psalms from this perspective can transform your prayer life, knowing that God not only hears your cries of lament, but desires to comfort you in them.
