Godly Grief (The Power of Prayer)
Psalm 77
Introduction –Jane Marczewski, aka Nightbirde (Terry Crews, host of America’s Got Talent, “You are the voice we all need to hear this year.” - - Source, Angela Davis - The Gospel Coalition; See Nightbirde’s blog post, “God Is On the Bathroom Floor”)
READ: Psalm 77
Psalms of Lament
Following Daddy B’s death (Rachel’s Dad), we poured out our hearts to the Lord. Amid our pain, we began to find words and phrases in the Bible that captured the emotions of our hearts. The Bible gave voice to our pain. Particular Psalms, like Psalm 77, became our own. We read these passages before, but we had never seen them or heard them like this.
Psalms are filled with Lament. It’s noteworthy that at least a third of the 150 Psalms are laments. Cherished portion of Scripture. Aren’t the Psalms one of the first places you turn to when you’re in pain? The book of Psalms is a Songbook for God’s covenant community. They reflect the joys, struggles, sorrows and triumphs of life. This poetical book does not sugarcoat suffering.
What is Lament?
Lament can be defined as a loud cry, howl or a passionate expression of grief. However, in the Bible, lament is more than sorrow or talking about sadness. Mark Vroegop states that “lament is a prayer in pain that leads to trust.” I understand lament as a deep cry of sorrow or grief or pain with the eyes still fixated on the Lord and his promises. Throughout the Scriptures, lament gives voice to the strong emotions that believers feel because of suffering. It wrestles with the struggles that surface.
Lament typically asks at least two questions: (1) “Where are you, God?” [Psalm 10:1b, “Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?”; See also Psalm 42:3, “My tears have been my food day and night, while they say to me all day long, ‘Where is your God?’”] (2) “If you love me, why is this happening?” [Psalm 13:1, “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?”]
Lament is not the opposite of praise. Instead, lament is path to praise as we are led through our brokenness and disappointment. It is the transition between pain and promise. It is the path from heartbreak to hope; from anguish to adoration; from weeping to worship.
Central Truth: A Gospel-centered prayer is a powerful prayer – Meditation on the person and character of God revealed in his word and his acts of deliverance will turn lamentation into praise. Psalm 77 beautifully traces this transformation in the psalmist’s experience.
Transition: How do we navigate life when “sorrows like sea billows roll”?
I. Turn to the God who listens to us
This is a great lesson for us. Our days of challenges should be days of calling upon the name of the Lord. Asaph is teaching us that “in the day of trouble” we must seek the Lord in prayer. The word “trouble” in verse 2 describes a feeling of being confined, of the walls closing in. Asaph felt like he was in a dark tunnel, only there is no light at the end. The Psalmist is clearly in pain, and yet he doesn’t turn to food or shopping, alcohol or gambling, pornography or any other means people commonly use to cope. He did not choose to be silent either, instead, he got honest with God. Really honest! When he speaks, there is no pretension, no faking of happiness. He cried out in prayer. It takes faith to pray a lament. The first three verses of this Psalm give a glimpse of the
effect of crisis on the psalmist but notice that they also reveal the strength of his faith in his earnest prayer. Faith and prayer are linked. True faith brings forth prayer. According to John Calvin, “It is impossible for a believer who has tasted the goodness of God ever to cease to aspire to that goodness in all his prayers.”
A robust understanding of God’s sovereignty as well as his mercy and
deliverance makes lament possible. If you don’t believe in God’s abiding
presence and his ability to deliver there would be no reason to lament when pain invades your life. Todd Billings in his book “Rejoicing in Lament” pointed out that “It is precisely out of trust that God is sovereign that the Psalmists repeatedly bring laments and petitions to the Lord.” He continued, “if the Psalmists had already decided the verdict – that God is indeed unfaithful – they would not continue to offer their complaint.”
Our response to crisis reveals our heart’s deep loyalty and our knowledge of God.
“The ultimate test of my understanding of the scriptural teaching is the amount of time I spend in prayer. As theology is ultimately the knowledge of God, the more theology I know, the more it should drive me to seek God... If all my knowledge does not lead me to prayer there is something
wrong somewhere” (Martyn-Lloyd Jones).
Who is God to you? It is not who you know that matters. Rather, it is what you know about
who you know that matters.
Illustration and application: What has the Lord been teaching you from his word lately?
We have a friend (Jesus) in the heavenlies. He is the right person (God-man) with the right past (he was forsaken for us) in the right place (seated at the right hand of God interceding for us).
II. Talk to the God who loves us
Talk to God about your struggles. Look at the Psalmist’s description of his ongoing tension (77:2-4). He’s going to express to us his deepest inner doubts and questionings. He starts off by saying, “You have held my eyelids open....” Sleepless nights are no new thing, are they? He goes on to say, “I am so troubled that I cannot speak.” And you know what he’s talking about. Sometimes troubles are so great that they leave us dumbstruck, without the words to say to God or friends. He’s praying but it’s not bringing immediate comfort or resolution. It does not always lead to an immediate solution. It is not a simplistic formula. It is the song that you sing believing that one day God will answer and restore. Lament invites us to pray through our struggle with a life that is far from perfect.
Talk to God about your questions (77:5-6). We all have our WHY MOMENTS! The psalmist wrestles with why God isn’t doing more! He is reflecting and meditating. See his questions (77:7- 9). Does he really believe that God isn’t loving? That God doesn’t keep his promises? That God is unfaithful? I don’t think so. But Asaph does something important here. Honestly praying this way recognizes that pain and suffering often create difficult emotions that are not based upon truth but feel true, nonetheless.
Illustration and application: Your tears today will be your testimony tomorrow.
May be some of you are going through the same thing. It’s hard for us to navigate suffering as mature believers. At times, it’s tempting for us took at other families and ask “why do we face all this hardship, while their lives seem untouched by pain?” The same thing is true when you lost
your job, when you battle with depression or lost someone you deeply love.
But God knows everything we are going through. He loves us and he cares for us. And we know that God uses the hardest of days (the ones we tried to avoid) to increase our faith, to grow our character, and set us on a different path that we would have chosen for ourselves.
If you are walking a hard road with your family or are gripped with
fear over something that might threaten your comfort and happiness. I’d like
to encourage you with some ways that I’ve seen God used afflictions and
trials to refine us and turn them for his glory and our good. Often, his steadfast love and faithfulness doesn’t mean removing our pain but rather giving us strength and provision through it. Yes, in this fallen, broken world we struggle. We get depressed and feel disillusioned at times. With the diagnosis of Prader-Willi Syndrome of our second son, there was no comfort for a few days. There was simply a sharp emotional pain that is simply indescribable that rested upon us. We felt numb toward everything except that pain. We do not know what Asaph is enduring but we can relate to the circumstance where we could not find any comfort or release. But he shows us here that God is closer than we think when we are troubled and depressed.
III. Trust the God who leads us (Keep trusting the one who keeps you trusting)
A. Build your confidence by meditating on the incomparable person and redemptive works of God
We can see the power of prayer (godly grief) here. Prayer of lament transforms us and it teaches us. Godly grief or lament turns us around (77:10-13). In all we feel and all the questions we have, there comes a point where we must call to mind what we know to be true. The entire Psalm shifts with the word “then” in verse 10 and the subsequent appeal to the history of God’s powerful deliverance. Notice the personal “I” (focusing on the actions/historical works of God to the attributes/very character of God). The Psalm now directs attention to what God has done for his people in the past, especially in the exodus and in the wilderness, as grounds for confidence that he will not abandon his purpose for his people.
Take note of the words – God’s deeds, God’s work, God’s wonders and mighty deeds (77:11- 12). Exodus 7:13-15 echo the song of Moses in Exodus 15:1-18, which celebrates the Israelites’ passage through the Red Sea.
Psalm 77
“Your way, O God, is holy” (77:13a)
“What God is great like our God” (77:13b) “Works wonders” (77:14a)
“Made known your might among the peoples” (77:14b) “Arm” (77:15a)
“Redeemed your people” (77:15b)
Exodus 15
“Majestic in holiness (15:11a)
“Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods?” (15:11b) “Doing wonders” (15:11c)
“The peoples have heard” (15:14)
“The greatness of your arm” (15:16)
“The people whom you have redeemed” (15:13)
B. Believe that the God who has done great things certainly has the power to do them again.
Do you see what is happening here? The Psalmist anchors his questioning, his hurting to the single greatest redemption event in the life of Israel. In particular, he focused his troubled mind on the crossing of the Red Sea, reminding himself of how, at that desperate moment, when by all appearances it had looked like Egypt would wipe Israel out and the covenants would fail, God had “redeemed [his] people, the children of Jacob and Joseph” (Psalm 77:15). This moment defined his understanding of God’s character. The exodus was an anchor for his weary soul. Asaph is praying the Gospel. He’s preaching the Gospel to himself.
For the Christian, the exodus event, the place where we find ultimate deliverance, is the cross of Christ. This is where all our questions, our heartaches and pain, should be taken. The cross shows us that God has already proven himself to be for us and not against us. Angela Davis says, “Is there a more humble place for God to draw near to us? Yes. On the cross. God the Son took on flesh and entered into this sin-ravaged, cancer-stricken world to deliver us from it. Jesus went willingly to the cross and experienced the suffering our sin deserves, in order to give us all he merited with his perfect life.”
Illustration and application: “It is well with my soul” by Horatio G. Spafford.
Life can be so unpredictable. Horatio Spafford knew something about life’s unexpected challenges. After losing his daughters to drowning, words of comfort and hope filled his heart and
mind. He wrote them down, and they have since become a well-beloved hymn:
When peace like a river, attendeth my way, When sorrows like sea billows roll— Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to know It is well, it is well with my soul.
That line is understandable especially for someone who lost a lot. But look at the third verse: My sin, oh the bliss of this glorious thought
My sin, not in part, but the whole (every bit, every bit, all of it) Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more (yes!)
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!
Spafford takes the immediacy of loss; the experience of his humanity and he’s setting it within the framework of God’s great work in Christ. Whereas the psalmist recalled the greatest act of salvation in Israel’s history, the exodus. Christians may recall a greater salvation provided for us in the death and resurrection of Christ.
Godly grief has a place in this world. There is much in this broken world that we must lament. It is part of our calling to weep over the ways in which our own brokenness damages ourselves and others around us. But weeping is not forever. All of the sorrows of our sins and sorrows of this broken world cannot ultimately hold you in their grasp - even death cannot threaten you with separation from God’s love. Death has been defeated. Death has vanquished. It has lost its grip on you and one day God will bring to end your long night of weeping and replace it with a deep and lasting joy as it will bring you to the fullness of your inheritance. So, we pray, Maranatha (Come Lord Jesus).
And Lord, haste the day when the faith shall be sight, The clouds be rolled back as a scroll;
The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend, Even so, it is well with my soul.