O LORD, God of my salvation,
I cry out day and night before you.
Let my prayer come before you;
incline your ear to my cry!
Psalm 88:1-2
What do I do when what I feel is at odds with what I believe? That is where Psalm 88 is a helpful companion. The psalm is a lament… basically eighteen verses of constant complaint poured out to God. But unlike every other psalm of lament, Psalm 88 is quite different. It is rough. It isn’t very “happy churchy”. The pattern in every other lament psalm is for the music to turn from compliant to an observed way in which God is trusted. Yet here we have Psalm 88 tenaciously stuck in feeling-fueled pain. It stays in a minor key. It is just one big litany of bad feelings manically gushing from a wounded heart.
Yet I find in the very first verse a reality that marks the life of a believer with mature faith: “I cry out… before you.” The psalm simply centers on this first step toward resolution: when life gets hard we cry out to God. Psalm 88 encourages us that our hurts lead to prayer… heartfelt, honest, deep, and unwavering words to God. In every pain we should pray. In every puzzling paradox we petition the God of our salvation. In the unthinkable loss or hurt we seek Him Who is undeniably reliable. We earnestly bend the ear of our Savior when life hurts!
So reading the torrent of tortuous tears in Psalm 88 DOES have a purpose for us! It may be the most realistic advice we can heed when life is suddenly and overwhelming hard. It calls us to pray and to not grow weary in a steadfast and stubborn appeal to God. It compels us to face our fears and speak our feelings with a straightforward faith that God will hear us. And that is how faith conquers feelings… it directs hard feelings to the Father Who hears and heals.
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