Truths for Your Trials

Truths for Your Trials

Psalm 77

Main Idea: Healthy believers process their pain in the presence of God.

Here’s a challenge I’ve been noticing more recently as I’ve shared the gospel or had spiritual conversations with unbelievers. They know the message. They may even self-identify as Christian. However, when you hear them talk about God or Jesus, it’s not obvious that Jesus is actually real or alive. You wouldn’t get the impression that Jesus Christ is ruling and reigning—that he must be known and treasured; that he is available, listening, acting; that he has the power to make all things new.

How real is your Christianity? Do you actually interact with God? When you talk about him (do we talk about him?), does it sound like we’re talking about an awesome friend and King? Or does Christianity sound more like a spiritual exercise program that, at least for you, seems to yield some good results?

Dallas Willard, professor of philosophy for forty-six years at the University of Southern California, was a compelling Christian. He had a tremendously painful childhood. He lost his mom in a tragic accident when he was two. His dad remarried quickly in order to find someone to mother Dallas. She hated Dallas, so he ended up being raised by his brother and sister-in-law. As a teenager Willard had a hungry mind and read every book in the high school library by the time he graduated. His favorite book was Plato’s Republic, and he carried it with him as he worked on a farm in his home state of Missouri. Then God found young Dallas and completely changed his life.

As a professor, Dallas was a magnet for students curious to hear more after class about his views. Another professor at USC tells of a conversation with a philosophy student that went this way:

“Do you think Jesus can walk up to you?” he asked me. So I asked the student, “What do you mean by that?” And he said that he came from Dallas’ office and “He told me about Jesus, and he said, ‘Now when you pray, Jesus will walk right up to you and he will listen to you.’”

I met that student twenty years later at a philosophy conference and he was still talking to Jesus. . . . Now who talks like that, “Jesus can walk up to you”? It is a person that truly believes that invisible things like the Trinity and the kingdom are actually real. (J. P. Moreland, quoted in Moon, Becoming Dallas Willard, 108)

So, again, how real is your Christianity? Do you believe in a God who hears your cries? In a way, this psalm speaks to the nature of our real relationship with God. The first reality is this:

We Get to Be Weak

Psalm 77:1-10

This is a psalm of lament. It’s a believer running to God for help, for strength. In verse 2 we see his hand stretched out all night.

I grew up watching cartoons like Tom and Jerry. It’s basically a cat and a mouse constantly fighting each other. You’d see one of them hit the other one’s finger with a hammer, and what would happen? It would throb and pulsate and change colors.

The first time I smashed my thumb with a hammer, I realized it was all true. I also discovered at bedtime that it didn’t hurt as badly if I held my thumb up in the air. So there I was lying in bed, arm straight, elbow locked, thumb up. You’re thinking, That’s so cute. I was in my thirties! The moonlight was coming through the window on my side of the room, and my wife rolled over and saw this strange silhouette—my arm straight and thumb pointing at the ceiling. And yes, she mocked me just a little. Here’s the thing: I didn’t care how weird it looked; I just wanted relief!

For the ancient Hebrew, physical postures were often a window into what was happening on the inside. They would tear their outer garments to show what they were experiencing on the inside. Here in verse 2 his lifted hands are an outward sign of a heart that was reaching toward God for help.

If you’re allergic to being thought of as needy, poor, and helpless, you’re not going to like the Bible—the Psalms especially. If you happen to be a person whose life has mostly gone as planned, the Psalms might honestly just seem whiny. It might seem like King David huddled up with all his angsty, music-major friends—a bunch of Eeyores with guitars—hit the record button, and poof, the Psalms.

However, if you’ve tasted hardship, I hope, as we read these words, there is a welcome realism here reminding you you’re not alone. The Christian life isn’t about pretending everything is going great. This is one of the things that is so refreshing about the Psalms, particularly psalms of lament. If you don’t wake up every day feeling like a world changer, the Psalms are your new best friend.

This psalm is assuring you in line after line that God hears his people when we call to him. What’s this psalmist saying? I think author Eugene Peterson captures it: “I found myself in trouble and went looking for my Lord; my life was an open wound that wouldn’t heal. When friends said, ‘Everything will turn out all right,’ I didn’t believe a word they said” (Ps 77:2 The Message). He refused to be comforted. It’s like his soul is so blistered, so raw. He doesn’t want a hug; he wants an answer.

As a friend, you encourage him, “Think about God’s goodness; meditate on his faithfulness.” He says, “That’s exactly what I’ve been doing! But,” verse 3, “when I think of God, I groan. When I meditate, my spirit becomes weak.” In other words, “None of the exercises of faith seem to be working.” Think, for example, of what it’s like trying to turn a nut that’s rusted. You can have the best wrench in the world, but if the nut is rusted, it’s nearly impossible to turn it. That’s how the psalmist feels.

He thinks about God’s grace in days past (vv. 5-6), and that seems to make it worse. He starts asking hard questions (vv. 7-9). It’s hard to figure out how to translate verse 10. “I am grieved” could also be translated “my plea/appeal,” and the word changed could also be translated “years.” So it’s difficult to sort that out with certainty, but the idea is clear. To the psalmist, it feels like God’s strength was more readily available in the past than right now.

What a statement! Just stop and think about so many places in Scripture where, if God managed his Word like we manage our Facebook page, he’d edit a bunch of stuff out. Peter denying Christ. Paul and Barnabas having a heated argument about John Mark. The entire book of Judges. You come to Genesis 9: Noah is fresh off the ark. It’s a new start for him and the world, until verse 18. If I were the editor of the Bible, I’d say, “Let’s take the camera off Noah. Let’s get some B roll, capture some nature shots, until Noah is presentable. And by ‘presentable’ I mean dressed . . . and sober.” But no. All of that material made it into the Bible.

And here in Psalm 77 God doesn’t edit out the psalmist’s feelings. Were I the editor, I might’ve said, “I don’t like what he’s suggesting in verses 7 through 9. I don’t want people to be encouraged to say anything remotely like this in prayer, so let’s leave that out.” However, please don’t mistake why these verses are here. They are not here to get us to think, Apparently, it’s possible for God’s faithful love to cease. I mean, here we church folk have been singing ‘his mercies are new every morning’ all these years. But, hey, in light of verse 8, maybe they aren’t. These verses aren’t the expressions of a hardened skeptic. The true skeptic says, “Why bother? I stopped talking to the walls years ago.”

No, the beauty here is God allows the psalmist to express what he feels. Psalm 77 is a believer trying to breathe. Christian friend, the fight of faith involves discerning the difference between our feelings and the truth. These verses don’t want to encourage you to fall in love with doubts you may be having about God. No, what we’re supposed to hear in this is God saying, “You don’t have to presort everything. Bring all of that mess to me. I want you to cast all your cares, all your anxieties on me (1 Pet 5:7). You don’t have to be the hero. You don’t have to keep your chin up. You don’t have to smile. You don’t have to be strong. Put away your glossy-brochure (non-real) Christianity, and come fall into my arms.”

He Gets to Be Strong

Psalm 77:11-20

When our kids were little, we spent every night for several years reading a brief passage in the Bible, a few minutes praying, and a few minutes teaching through the Westminster Shorter Catechism, a series of brief questions with memorable answers drawn from Scripture.

A few years later I was in a car with a minister, and he was going on and on saying he thought the Heidelberg Catechism was better than the Westminster. I couldn’t let the Westminster go down without a fight, so we playfully bantered back and forth. I wasn’t really prepared for this exchange since, in fact, I had never read the Heidelberg Catechism. So I went to my hotel room that night (we were at a conference), and I read the first question of the Heidelberg.

1. Q. What is your only comfort in life and death?

A. That I am not my own, but belong with body and soul, both in life and in death, to my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood, and has set me free from all the power of the devil. He also preserves me in such a way that without the will of my heavenly Father not a hair can fall from my head; indeed, all things must work together for my salvation. Therefore, by his Holy Spirit he also assures me of eternal life and makes me heartily willing and ready from now on to live for him.

I read that and thought, OK, it’s a tie. There are much worse ways to begin instructing new believers about the faith. I’m not my own. I’m his. He’s got me. He can save me and preserve me. I can be weak, and he can be strong.

One of the great truths we see in the Psalms is that the Christian life is conversation with God. Here the psalmist starts by unburdening his soul before God. Then, by God’s grace, his soul finds another gear, and he starts remembering, reflecting, and meditating. Verses 11 and 12 are the hinge of the passage. Before that, we hear, “I cry aloud . . . refused to be comforted. . . . I think of God; I groan. . . . I am troubled and cannot speak.” Then he says, “I will remember . . . yes, I will remember.”

There’s a key difference between “I might remember,” “I’ll try to remember,” and “I will remember.” This is not the psalmist finding his bootstraps. This is Spirit-empowered faith that keeps talking to God. He’s talking about God’s strength and grace and saving power in real history. Verse 16 is a reference to the exodus, where God brought his people to the shores of the Red Sea, and the waters retreated. And the Is of honest complaint are replaced with the yous and yours of Godward trust: “Your way is holy. . . . You are the God who works wonders; you revealed your strength. . . . You redeemed your people” (vv. 13-15).

What’s he doing? He’s believing! He’s fighting the fight of faith, but not in his own strength. There’s no boasting, no chest thumping in verses 11-20. His eyes are up and out.

In a sense we might have expected verse 4 to be the end of Psalm 77. We hear him say, “I am troubled and cannot speak”—but he keeps speaking. Day and night he’s calling on the God who hears his cries.

This is real faith in a real God who is really listening. We need to know that, in light of the rest of what Scripture says, none of this happens apart from Jesus. We can’t run around Jesus Christ to get an audience with a holy God. This is why the holy God sent his only Son. And Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). All the good that God has for you and me is wrapped up in Jesus. That’s why Jesus came: so that our sin would no longer separate us from God. Jesus went to the cross and paid for our sins. He rose from the dead so that whoever believes has eternal life, sins forgiven, and a Father who is available right now.

I love stories in the gospels where Jesus intervenes. When he does, we are seeing him making spiritual truths visible. In Mark 9 there’s a boy who is possessed by evil spirits. The boy’s dad says this evil is trying to destroy his son. “If you can do anything,” he pleads, “have compassion on us and help us.” And the Gospel writer records, “Jesus said to him, ‘If you can’? Everything is possible for the one who believes.” Then the dad says, “I do believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:21-24).

How real is your Christianity? Does it express itself in the way you run toward God in trials? As if he is as real as everything you’re up against? Where we come to seek the Lord’s strength and Jesus “walks right up” to us and listens?

Christian friend, we have a God who listens when we pray. We have a God who intervenes and sustains and rescues. Let’s not live this life of faith relying on our own strength. Let’s not present to unbelievers a Christianity that’s for all the happy people who are winning in life. Let’s cast our cares on him. Let’s cling to hope in Christ. Let’s offer that hope to the world. Let’s remember the gospel. Let’s look up and out to the God who hears our cries.

Reflect and Discuss

1. How do you get to a point in your relationship with the Lord where it sounds as though you are talking about a real friend when you mention him?
2. How can we discern the difference between feelings and truth?
3. As Christians, how should we respond when our feelings do not match God’s truth?
4. Why does God want us to bring our mess to him, not presort it? What keeps us from coming to him with our mess?
5. How would you answer the question, How real is your Christianity? Why?
6. If you were to unburden your soul before God right now, what things would you address with him (e.g., past and present hurts, wounds, memories, questions, sorrows)?
7. Is your Christianity as real as your pain? Why or why not? If it’s not, why? What would hinder you from turning to God and trusting him fully in your pain?
8. How will you allow this psalm to shift your view of God in the midst of a trial or how you respond to a trial when it occurs?