I am too stressed to feel blessed.

Then I said, “I will appeal to this,

to the years of the right hand of the Most High.”

Psalm 77:10

This is a deliberate move to willfully choose to appeal to the work of God despite a season of doubt and pain. I love that the psalms do this so much, and Psalm 77 is a favorite because it perfectly captures what to do when my soul hits a troubling season where it seems I can’t see God at work. It encourages me to remember what God has done.

This appeal to “the years of the right hand of the Most High” in verse 10 comes right after the psalmist has endured a sleepless night filled with troubling questions. Five painful questions that haunt the soul are fired at God in Psalm 77:7-9. They describe feelings more than facts, but they are painful nonetheless. The psalmist feels like God will never favor His people again. He feels like God’s love has ceased. He feels like God has no more promises to bless. It feels like grace is gone and anger from God is all that is left.

Despite this spiritual depression, God moves through the deliberate act of faith that remembers God’s work in the past. God has blessed. And this psalm pushes us to remember God at the times where we feel more stressed than blessed. The psalm goes on to list five words that counteract those previous five questions as it remembers specifically God’s deeds, wonders, works, ways, and might. This ultimately leads to praise for God’s redemptive work, all laid out beautifully in Psalm 77:11-15. And this is why I discipline myself to write in a journal. It is the way that I can appeal to God’s work when I feel seasons of doubt. The value of journaling comes in the recording of God’s work, but most importantly, in the remembering of His work that comes in my reading of them. Stressful, difficult, doubting seasons all begin to fade when compared to what I know God has done for me in the past, and right now, still is doing for my future.