Psalm 88 Part 2

Psalms are full of prayers from people going through difficult times – but most of them end on a note of hope. Psalm 88 and 39 do not. Darkness is mentioned 3 times in Ps 88, in Hebrew, it is the last word. At the end of the psalm, Heman is literally saying, “My only friend now is darkness.” What kind of prayer ends with that? What is this prayer doing in the Bible?

Even for a Christian, darkness can be something that lasts a long time. Heman, at the beginning of his prayer, had said that God was the one who saved him, so he was actually trusting God as his saviour and praying every day. There are two kinds of darkness; outer darkness and inner darkness. Outer darkness is to do with circumstances. (losing friends or loved ones, sickness, facing death, etc.) But Heman was facing inner darkness as well. He feels abandoned by God. He feels rejected, God has gone! So he was experiencing outward and inward darkness, but still praying. By the end of the psalm, he is still in darkness. What this is teaching is that you can be a faithful Christian, trusting in God for your salvation, praying, and doing what you should, but for a long time, things don’t seem to be getting any better.

Hold on to God, even when he seems to be thrusting you away. We grow most when the going is rough. Too much sunshine makes a desert. Trees battered by the storms have sturdier roots.  Without the discipline of trial and trauma, we would never become stronger. Say to yourself, “Be my feelings what they will, Jesus is my saviour still.”  Feelings are unreliable; like the weather, changing from day to day. 

Ps88 teaches us about the realism of the Bible. Christianity is realistic – there can be long times of darkness. Bad things happen to Christians too. Jesus didn’t have a great life! A refugee as a child, persecuted as an adult, rejected tortured, and killed. He said, “In the world, you will have trouble,” and ”The world hated me and it will hate you.”  TBC