For the day when honest prayer has no bright ending.
Yahweh, the God of my salvation, I have cried day and night before you. Let my prayer enter into your presence. Turn your ear to my cry. For my soul is full of troubles. My life draws near to Sheol. I am counted among those who go down into the pit. I am like a man who has no help, set apart among the dead, like the slain who lie in the grave, whom you remember no more. They are cut off from your hand. You have laid me in the lowest pit, in the darkest depths. Your wrath lies heavily on me. You have afflicted me with all your waves. You have taken my friends from me. You have made me an abomination to them. I am confined, and I can’t escape. My eyes are dim from grief. I have called on you daily, Yahweh. I have spread out my hands to you. Do you show wonders to the dead? Do the departed spirits rise up and praise you? Is your loving kindness declared in the grave? Or your faithfulness in Destruction? Are your wonders made known in the dark? Or your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness? But to you, Yahweh, I have cried. In the morning, my prayer comes before you. Yahweh, why do you reject my soul? Why do you hide your face from me? I am afflicted and ready to die from my youth up. While I suffer your terrors, I am distracted. Your fierce wrath has gone over me. Your terrors have cut me off. They came around me like water all day long. They completely engulfed me. You have put lover and friend far from me, and my friends into darkness.
When your prayer comes before Yahweh in the morning and the answer remains darkness, what will you call that silence? Psalm 88 gives you no bright turn. You cry day and night. Your soul is full of troubles. Your eyes grow dim from grief. Can you speak that plainly without calling your lament unbelief?
Your condition is not a lack of the right phrase. You feel confined, unable to escape, with lover and friend far away. The false refuge is manufactured brightness: painting a sunrise across a sealed room, or offering forced praise that hides the cry. That refuge leaves you alone with the darkness while pretending you have left it.
Christ does not require you to edit this lament into brightness. In his incarnation, he entered the darkness of human suffering. At the cross, he endured the judgment of sin; risen, he intercedes for you when your prayer has no answer. Your lament may end in darkness and still be brought before the crucified, risen Lord. Bring him the words you cannot brighten.
Your lament may end in darkness and still be brought before the crucified, risen Lord.
Lord Jesus, receive my unbright lament and keep me near your cross when I cannot see beyond this darkness.
Bring one honest question to today’s Scripture.
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