#DailyDevotion When Darkness Is Your Only Friend
Psalm 88 9My eyes get weak with grief. Every day I call You, O LORD, and spread out my hands to You. 10Do You do wonderful things for the dead? Do their spirits get up and praise You? 11Does anyone in the grave tell about Your kindness; do they talk about Your faithfulness in that place of decay? 12Does anyone in that dark place know Your wonders or anyone in the land of forgetfulness know Your righteousness?
Let us remember verse one, “O LORD God, You can save me.” This is the basis upon which the psalm is based.
Now these verses 9-12, what shall we make of them? Should we take them literally or is the psalmist being poetic. From these verses we could see how the Sadducees believed there was no resurrection. Or is the psalmist using a rhetorical tool or speaking from a human point of view, i.e. what we see and hear when we visit a graveyard? Given Jesus says that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are alive, though the Jews knew where their graves were and the parable of Lazarus and the rich man shows Lazarus in the comfort of the bosom of Abraham, I think we have to take these words as speaking from a human point of view.
So the psalmist reminds God how he calls upon the LORD every day and spreads out his hands to the LORD. We don’t see the dead in the graves doing that. The graveyard is silent except for the sighs of those who mourn. If the LORD wants to continue hearing the prayers of His people, He needs to do something to keep those who worship Him alive.
13But I call to You for help, O LORD; in the morning my prayer comes to You.
Like the psalmist, our prayers should be one of the first things we do in the morning. A good prayer to start off with is the LORD’s prayer. Luther’s morning prayer is a fine way to end our morning prayer:
I thank Thee, my Heavenly Father, through Jesus Christ, Thy dear Son, that Thou hast kept me this night from all harm and danger; and I pray Thee to keep me this day also from sin and all evil, that all my doings and life may please Thee. For into Thy hands I commend myself, my body and soul, and all things. Let Thy holy angel be with me, that the Wicked Foe may have no power over me. Amen.
14Why do You reject me, O LORD, and hide Your face from me? 15I’ve been suffering and close to death from my youth. I have endured Your terrors — I’m bewildered. 16Your blazing anger swept over me; Your terrors have destroyed me. 17All day long they surrounded me like a flood and attacked me from all sides. 18You have removed from me anyone who might love me or be a friend. The friend I know is – darkness!
Pretty tough talk with God here. The psalmist feels utterly spent and rejected by God. The things that are happening to him don’t make sense because he worships the LORD. What an ending to the prayer, “The friend I know is darkness!” Have you ever felt like this? Solomon in 1 Kings 8 says, “The LORD said He would live in thick darkness.” Even the darkness is light unto the LORD. Jesus certainly felt this way as our sins were laid upon Him. As He prayed in the Garden to let this pass from Him, He sweated like drops of blood. In the darkness of the day, He cries out, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken me.” Take comfort in this when verses 14-18 are manifested in your life. Jesus has gone through this already for you.
Heavenly Father, when the waves and the darkness of life overwhelms us, give us courage to meet You, our Friend in that darkness that it may be light to us. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.