|
I will call to mind the deeds of the Lord;
I will remember your wonders of old.
I will meditate on all your work,
and muse on your mighty deeds.
Your way, O God, is holy.
What god is so great as our God?
You are the God who works wonders;
you have displayed your might among the peoples.
With your strong arm you redeemed your people,
the descendants of Jacob and Joseph.
–– Psalm 77:11-14
“I know that I shouldn’t be mad at God, but…” It is a frequent thought expressed among the faithful. Emotions raw. Trauma, fresh and profound. Answers, not available and not forthcoming. Of course, they are mad at God. It would be hard to fathom why they wouldn’t be mad at God. Death, illness, rejection, injury, injustice, or conflict has struck either close by or directly into your spirit and you are laid low, feeling what Jesus felt when he cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Somehow, I don’t think Jesus said that with a calm, pastoral voice. Surely anger was audible in that cry.
Faith is not immune to anger and doubt and even despair. While I’ll admit that I am comforted by many Psalms and confused by others, if there is one consistent message sewn into a host of the Psalms, it is that God gives us space for our anger, our questions, our challenges, and our doubts. Read alone, the verses above could be construed as confident and self-satisfied. Yet, what they actually represent are the honest desire to cope with the doubts and wounds that plague the psalmist. They are preceded by verses that do not hold back in expressing the psalmist’s distress –– “Will the Lord spurn forever, and never again be favorable? Has his steadfast love ceased forever? Are his promises at an end for all time? Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he in anger shut up his compassion?” These are honest questions that if you have never asked them or never will ask them, you would be the exception to the rule. Doubt and frustration are as universal as flies at a picnic.
The good news is that God abides with us through the doubts and anger. Psalm 139 says it this way –– “if I make my bed in Sheol (the land of no return) , you are there.” In the latter verses of Psalm 77 quoted above, the psalmist is bringing to mind the way God has demonstrated in the past both God’s presence and faithfulness as a means of coping with, or at least tempering, the dark emotions presently roiling within. In a way, the psalmist is saying, “Okay, I’m in a dark place right now. I’m angry, and if you’re present and helping, I’m sure not sensing it; but, come to think of it, you have been a present help in the past, and somehow you are present now (or else I wouldn’t be speaking to you), so maybe I can trust that you have not and will not let me go. So, renew a right spirit within me, O Lord.” As the psalmist said elsewhere –– “even the darkness is not dark to you.”
| 
