Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - When Darkness is Your Only Friend | The Writings | Psalm 88

Episode Date: July 16, 2024

Psalm 88 is the saddest Psalm in the Bible. The Psalm begins with pain and ends with agony. But the fact that this prayer is in the Bible is good news to those who suffer. In today's episode, Tanya shares how Psalm 88 points us to Jesus - who hears our cries and bore our pain on the cross. Read the Bible with us in 2024! This year, we’re tackling a group of Old Testament books traditionally known as “The Writings”— Psalms, Chronicles, Proverbs, Daniel, Ruth and more! Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Psalm 88

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Tanya Wilmeth. Psalm 8 has been called the saddest Psalm in the Bible. There's only one other Psalm, number 39, that doesn't at least end on a relatively high note. You know how it goes. The psalmist will talk about their distress and their trouble and cry out about what's on their hearts. And then it ends with something like, but Lord, surely, you are with me on.

my days, or, but his steadfast love indoors forever. But nope, not Psalm 88. No, this one ends like this. It says, but darkness is my closest companion. Or in the original Hebrew, it ends on the word darkness. My closest companion is darkness. Darkness is the theme of this Psalm. It's actually mentioned three times. If there are mountaintop experiences, Psalm 88 is not it. If there are experiences where you can at least see how to get to the mountaintop, this is not it. I've been to the Grand Canyon and from the rim and the trails close to the rim,

you look into the valley and the Colorado River and the valley, they look tiny, like a little chocolate ribbon running through the canyon. But Psalm 88 was written from the valley, where the canyon and the river look and feel as big as they really are. Psalm 88 has no turning point, no resolution, and yet its very presence in the Bible is reason to hope. Let me tell you why. First, it helps us manage our expectations. It helps us want to keep praying.

It tells us we aren't an unfamiliar territory. and it explains the relative nature of darkness. Let's talk about the first one. It helps us manage our expectations. The Psalm opens with the writer crying out to God. He says, Oh, Lord, God of my salvation, I cry out day and night before you.

Let my prayer come before you. Incline your ear to my cry. Now we just read the only inspiring line of this entire Psalm, and that's in verse 1 where it says, O Lord, God of my salvation. The writer says to God, you are my salvation. This is evidence of faith. But should life be easier if we belong to God?

Is it unfair when we go through hard things? What's our expectation about being one of God's children? One of the great hallmarks of the Bible that sets it apart from all other inspirational literature, all other self-help literature, all other things that we read to make ourselves feel good or to be good. The Bible is different because it tells the truth. It doesn't sell you something that looks better than it turns out to be. It doesn't tell you that Christianity will give you a trouble-free life. In fact, Jesus said in John 18, here on earth, you will have many trials and sorrows. We just went through the book of Job here on the podcast, and one of the things we

learned is that Job was an upright man after God's own heart, but his life was full of sorrow. The author of Job wasn't just writing for us to see Job's suffering, but to help with our own expectations about the Christian life. It may sound despairing to think about the trials and sorrows that Jesus talked about when he was telling his disciples what to expect. But when we're in them, it's good to know the truth, that hard things don't mean that we aren't where we belong. Trials and sorrows aren't indicators that we're somehow don't belong to God. There's suffering that has nothing to do with our choices, and there's sometimes suffering that we add to because of false expectation.

That second kind of suffering is something we can learn to avoid when we understand that Jesus, who was more obedient, more loving, more compassionate, more patient than we'll ever be did not live an easy life. If we are living in darkness, either in our darkness like depression or doubt or outer darkness because there are circumstances crushing us, that darkness does not mean God does not care about us. In fact, quite the opposite. Another reason why this Psalm gives us reason to hope is because it helps us remember to keep praying. Heeman is the writer of this Psalm, not Heaman from Esther, but Heeman with an E. And it says that he cried out to God day and night.

In verse 9, he says, every day I call upon you, oh Lord, I spread out my hands to you. He wasn't just complaining to anyone who would listen. but he's still talking directly to God. This is unlike the prayer of the Pharisee that wanted everyone to hear and see him praying. Rather, this is a prayer that was toward the heart of God. Humans' prayers weren't perfect. In fact, in this Psalm, they border on blasphemy at times. He's saying, Lord, I wanted to be a witness for you, but do you actually work wonders for the dead?

Do the departed rise up to praise you? is your steadfast love declared in the grave? It's almost like he's saying, what are you thinking, Lord? If I truly die, if I go into despair, how is that going to show anything good about you? Why are you doing this, Lord? Do you really know what you're doing?

Remember, Job's prayers weren't always full of understanding and patience either. But what Job did and what Heiman is doing in this Psalm is keeping the conversation going. and that conversation is going with God. We don't have to have our act together to pray. We don't have to be able to say the right things. We can pray without cleaning it up first.

This Psalm is evidence that God wants us to keep talking to him when we feel this way. Third one, Psalm 88 tells us we aren't an unfamiliar territory. Until now, I've skipped over Psalm 88 because I didn't really know what to do with it. But I read something about how the very very very. existence of this Psalm is evidence that God understands. God isn't afraid of things, not having a nice little bow tied around them. He's not worried that someone questioning him will diminish his goodness. Psalm 88 means people we trust have gone through dark times that they couldn't see out of. The writer understands. Better yet, God put it, allowed it to be in the Bible because he understands.

When we can't smile or pull ourselves up by the bootstraps, God's not waiting in the wings until we do. Psalm 88 is him telling us he's not our God because we're smiling and joyful. He's our God because he's full of grace. Finally, Psalm 88 explains the relative nature of darkness. When the Psalm ends, Heiman doesn't see the other side. He says darkness is a better friend to him than God. He can only see what he's experiencing, which is pure darkness to him.

But here we are, 2,500 or so years later, talking about this Psalm. We also know that Heeman wrote several other Psalms that we recite today. So we know that his darkness wasn't wasted. We know that it wasn't permanent. We know that somehow God used it to make him into a great artist and a great poet. it. We know that God used Heiman's refinement and his talent to show us something. In this Psalm, Heiman accused God of making a bad name for himself, because he made Heiman's life look so terrible to the outside world. But that wasn't what God was doing.

God had a bigger and grander way to use Heiman's darkness. But Heiman said his whole life had been hard. He said he'd been afflicted and close to death from his youth. up. He said, I suffer your tears. He says he feels like he's been surrounded by darkness for as long as he can remember. We don't know exactly what he went through, but humans' words help us identify in our own darkness, whatever that may be. Now, when Jesus went to the cross, darkness was his only friend. Jesus was abandoned by the disciples, by his friends. Jesus was abandoned by his father so he could carry the weight of our sin. Matthew 2746 says, end about the ninth hour. Jesus cried out with a loud voice saying, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Jesus faced complete darkness while he took

the punishment for our sin. We are more needy, more fickle, more ungrateful, more transactional in our relationship with God than we think. In one sense, Satan was right about what he said to Job, Would you still love God? Would we still love God? If we're in pain, if we don't have the things that bring us joy? Darkness was the only friend to Jesus at the cross. So we, so you, would not be without a friend in your darkness. In other words, Jesus face darkness alone, so you don't have to.

I love this song, because its existence in our Bibles is evident. that God understands our darkness, that He is our companion when we've lost our hope and our way. If you're in this place, you're not alone. God loves you more than you can imagine. Jesus took everything that you could possibly bring on yourself and took it to the cross so that that darkness is not something you have to suffer. You don't have to suffer it alone. Let Psalm 88 be your prayer for a time if that's what you need, but keep the conversation going between your heart and God's.