Key Psalms — Psalm 77: Open and Honest with God
In this short series we are looking at four Psalms. Each of the four Psalms are representative of some of the main purposes of the Psalms.
In my first week back we started with Psalm 62. This psalm encourages people to trust in God’s love and strength – “One thing God has spoken, two things I have heard, that you, O God, are strong and that you, O God, our loving.” All throughout David’s life God kept his promise, even at times when all things look lost — God came through. So we used it as an encouragement to remember to trust in God and rest in him when life gets difficult. And so as we begin the New Year, begin by placing all things into his hands.
Then we continued with Psalm 105. This is a psalm calling us to praise God. The context for this psalm isn’t given, but it reminds us of the necessity to have a heart of praise towards God, no matter what our circumstances. We saw that there are at least five good reasons to praise God – to draw near to God, not to take God’s blessings for granted, to share with others our real experience of the goodness and greatness of God, to pass on the stories of God’s work so that we don’t forget, to encourage us.
Then last week we looked at Psalm 19. This psalm encourages its readers to align their morality and way of living with those of God expressed in the Scriptures. God knows far more than we do, and in recognition of this we should submit out thinking be in line with God’s. But of course for us Christians, the ultimate source for knowing God’s ways is the person of Jesus.
Week one, trust God, week two, praise God, week three, follow God’s ways. This week we are looking at Psalm 77, a psalm of openness and honesty with God, where the writer expresses their distressed emotional state, resulting from the circumstances they are in.
Often we hear the psalms which are positive about our experience of life and of God, but there are many psalms which reveal the writer’s deep sadness – we call these types of psalms “laments”. Of the total 150 psalms, around 50 are considered laments. So around one third of all psalms are complaints to God – which should in itself tell us something about how God wants us to interact with him.
It seems that complaining to God about difficult circumstances is encouraged by the psalms. There is clear understanding in Jewish thought that God desires us to be completely open and honest with him about what we are thinking and how we are feeling. God isn’t an emotionally fragile being who can’t handle your honest feelings and opinions, and who will flip out if you dare to question him. He is big enough to be able to handle your questioning of him, doubts about him and telling him that you’re not happy with how things are going.
But that being said, the psalms generally do this complaining in a particular way. Thus, the psalms themselves seem to suggest that there is a good and beneficial way to complain. Psalm 77 is a good example of this.
Psalm 77 begins by saying, “I cried out to God for help; I cried out to God to hear me.”
This brings us to the first element necessary to complain well – that is to direct your complaint to God. There is a clear difference between how the Israelites complained after God saved them from Egypt and the complaining in the Psalms. Do you remember from The Story, that we were told that the Israelites complained and grumbled against God? Grumbling is complaining you do with other people when the person you are complaining about isn’t around. So their complaining was not addressed to God himself – they just shared their discontent of God amongst themselves.
But here in Psalm 77, the writer directs their complaint to God. The difference is like this. “God, I am not happy with the way things are going for me, people aren’t treating me very well.” To, “I can’t believe God would allow this to happen to me – it just isn’t fair. How can he say he loves me and let me be treated like this?” That’s the difference between complaining in a healthy way to God and grumbling in an unhealthy way.
God wants us to be open and honest with him. Going directly to him shows that you trust him with your concern, whereas grumbling shows that you don’t trust God with your problems, and that’s what hurts God. Remember in Psalm 62 verse 8, where David encourages the people to trust God and pour out their hearts to him. So trust God with your issues and tell him about them.
Now with this Psalm we don’t know who wrote it or when it was written or what the problem is that is being faced. There is some speculation that the psalmist might be someone from the Northern Kingdom because he references being the descendants of Jacob and Joseph, but we don’t know.
What I do like about not knowing what is the problem that it is being faced, is that you can insert yourself right into the psalm. This psalm effectively works for any situation which causes great distress because what is described is the emotional state that the writer is in, and, if you’ve ever experienced great emotional turmoil, the psalmist gets what that experience is like, spot on.
Let’s hear again the experience of the psalmist. Verse 2, “When I was in distress, I sought the Lord; at night I stretched out untiring hands and my soul refused to be comforted.” Isn’t that exactly what it’s like?!
Now the Hebrew word translated as “stretched out” is an unusual one to be used – it means more like pouring out. Kind of like saying, I stretched out my hands to God and poured out my heart through them. “My soul refused to be comforted.” Here we can see that the psalmist is trying everything to console themselves, but nothing works. Have you ever had a time when, no matter what you did, you were completely inconsolable with distress? I’m sure we all have.
Then we read, “I remembered you, O God, and I… groaned; I mused, and my spirit grew faint.” So here the psalmist tells God, hey, when you came to mind, it only made things worse. All the questions, How could you let this happen to me? What did I do to deserve this? Why is this happening?
Knowing that you exist, God, and could have stopped it all happening, but chose not to, only makes things worse, because surely this shows that you don’t love me, and if I am the only person you don’t love that makes me a pretty wretched and unlovable person. Because of our thoughts, sometimes knowing that God exists does make things worse for us.
It continues on with how the thoughts of days filled with joy made me question so many things about you, God, like – what have I done for you to take those days away and replace them with these terrible ones?
Verses 7 to 9, “My heart mused and my soul inquired: Will the Lord reject for ever? Will he never show his favour again? Will his unfailing love vanish for ever? Has his promise failed for all time? Has God forgotten to be merciful? Has he in anger withheld his compassion?
Here we read all the doubts that fill our minds when we face a crushing situation. All the doubts about God's character we thought we believed in, but now we’re not so sure anymore.
If this does come from the Northern Kingdom, it’s quite possible that it is written by a faithful Hebrew when God is bringing judgement upon them for Israel’s unfaithfulness. But as I said we don’t know.
So here we read just how open we can be with God – just how honest we can be with him. There is nothing that is going on inside us that we can’t bring to God and honestly express to him.
What he doesn’t like is if you grumble about it to people, but don’t raise it with him.
Then we get to verse 10. And here the psalmist chooses to do something with their mind.
So let’s remember, the writer of this Psalm is in the midst of some terrible, soul-crushing circumstance which has caused them to be completely emotionally inconsolable. So what do you do???
Verses 10 to 12, “Then I thought, to this I will appeal: the years of the right hand of the Most High. I will remember your miracles of long ago. I will meditate on all your work and consider all your mighty deeds.”
So while feeling horrible, the psalmist makes a difficult and conscious decision to turn their thoughts to all the good things God has done – to really bring to mind all the things God has done to remove all the doubts which have crept in.
Does God really love me? What has he done in the past to show his love? Bring it to mind. Yes, he does love me! Has God forgotten me? What has he done to show he doesn’t forget us or all his promises? Bring it to mind. No, he hasn’t forgotten me!
Remember who God is. Who is God? He is holy, he performs miracles, he redeems his people.
And then the rest of the Psalm is recalling the events of God saving his people out of slavery in Egypt.
Finishing up in this wonderfully deep reflection – “Your path led through the Red Sea, your way through the mighty waters, though your footsteps were not seen. You led your people by the hand of Moses and Aaron.”
Here the psalmist recognises that, although God was the one who led them through the Red Sea, they never saw God himself – it was Moses and Aaron whom God used to lead the Israelites. And this is an important realisation.
God isn’t going to appear physically to you to comfort you and explain why things are happening as they are – unless you’re really fortunate to get a visit from Jesus or an angel, but that doesn’t usually happen. What is more likely, is to place a person to help lead you through, just like Israel had Moses and Aaron.
And that’s where Psalm 77 leaves us.
What this shows us is the importance of turning our thoughts to remember all the good things of God, once we have openly expressed our situation to God. This is a common pattern in those 50 psalms of lament. Thus, God has given us, in the Psalms, a way of complaining to him which is beneficial and healthy for us.
It starts by being concretely open and honest with God about your situation and how it is affecting you, including all your doubts. But once you have adequately expressed yourself, remember to bring to mind all the good things God has done in the past. So that you will know that, although you can’t understand why terrible things are happening to you, you know that God will get you through them. Amen.
Halifax and Ingham Uniting Churches, 11 February 2018