Psalm 77 - Has God forgotten?

Read: Psalm 77 vs 1-20

There is a lot of sorrow in Psalm 77. In this Psalm Asaph looks back to a time when he cried to God for help, a time he cried out asking that God would hear him (vs 1). We’re not told exactly what the circumstances were but this was a time of distress, a time of seeking God and not finding Him, a time of needing comfort but finding none (vs 2).

Asaph had many memories of God, many past experiences of Him but even as he thought about these things his spirit grew faint (vs 3). He could neither sleep nor speak (vs 4). Thinking about days when he knew God’s closeness actually seemed to make things worse and left him feeling so rejected in this present moment of emptiness. In vs 8-9 questions assault him from every angle:

‘Has His unfailing love vanished for ever?

Has His promise failed for all time?

Has God forgotten to be merciful?

Has he in anger withheld His compassion.’

Asaph is right on the edge here, right on the boundary line of belief and unbelief. Yet it is at this moment that he refuses to forget times that he knows were real, times when God was near to Him and mighty to save (vs 11-12). In meditating on the things that God has done Asaph finds shoots of hope springing in the desert wastes of his heart. Asaph finds hope in the name of the One who led His people ‘like a flock’ in their years of wilderness wanderings (vs 20).

The cries of these Psalms, the hurt and pain and questions that they give voice to cannot be explained away in the life of faith. This is a sorrowful Psalm, and yet even in that it points us forward. In Isaiah 53, at a dark time in Israel’s history, God’s prophet looked forward to a day when the LORD’ Servant would intervene on behalf of God’s people. In the Authorised Version we read of Him in vs 3 these terms:

‘He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief …’

Christian sorrow finds hope in the God who has ‘borne our griefs and carried our sorrows’ (Isaiah 53 vs 4). Psalm 77 leads us to the cross of Calvary and as we look upon the crucified One we see that He is carrying our sorrows. In meditating on this deepest of mysteries (Psalm 77 vs 12) there is much to hope.

Prayer: Lord Jesus you know my sorrows, my questions, my emptiness. Thank you for how you came to carry my sorrows all the way to the cross. May Your death be precious to me as I think upon You and all that You have done. Amen.