Suffering Psalms - Part 2

DAILY BYTE

Yesterday, we prayed through Psalm 13, grabbing hold of the permission God gives us to be honest in our prayers, expressing suffering and grief. But today, we have the opportunity to look at something else perhaps even more remarkable than that kind of honesty in this psalm.

In her book, Getting Involved with God: Rediscovering the Old Testament, Ellen Davis writes that lament psalms like this one move from “complaint to confidence in God, from desperate petition to anticipatory praise…without ever telling us that the external situation has changed for the better.”

Pray through Psalm 13 again, keeping this in mind!

Psalm 13
“How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I bear pain in my soul, and have sorrow in my heart all day long?
How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?

Consider and answer me, O Lord my God!
Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep the sleep of death,
and my enemy will say, “I have prevailed”’
my foes will rejoice because I am shaken.


But I trusted in your steadfast love;
my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.
I will sing to the Lord,
because he has dealt bountifully with me.”

Notice the shift from grief and frustration to trust and praise. It moves straight from one to the other even though we have no proof that the source of the sadness and frustration is gone!

What we do know, though, is that the more we make these prayers our own prayers, the more we are changed in the midst of situations of suffering, even if the suffering itself does not change.

These prayers lead us on a journey through tragedy toward hope, recognizing that life can be very hard, but if we join together with people in the past and people in our community of faith today, we have everything we need to engage with this struggle.

PRAY AS YOU GO

Suffering God, we thank you for the sustenance of the psalms and other people of faith who walk with us on our life journeys. Help us to persevere, as we struggle together, drawing nearer to one another and nearer to you. Amen.