Embracing Lament: The God who acted yesterday is with us still today
An African writer named Matshona T Dhliwayo has some negative things to say about the past. For example:
• “Marry your future, court your present, and divorce your past.”
• “Don’t mourn over the past; it has no pity for you. Don’t cry over the present; it has no sympathy for you, and don’t weep over the future; it has no mercy on you.”
• “The past is a closed door, the present is an open one, and the future is an approaching one.”
While we may find some nuggets of truth in any one of these sayings, none of them tells the whole story. Today’s psalm, for example, shows its writer savoring the past, in particular what God did in the past.
The writer asks, “Where’s God?” as he struggles to free himself from the stress and sadness of his current situation. Only when he concentrates on what God has already accomplished, how God has repeatedly intervened, and when God has mightily conquered does he find resolve to lay today’s problems before him.
Any caregiver might feel trapped by the trauma of today. We might not speak complaints like those as they’re rendered in The Message (“When friends said, ‘Everything will turn out all right,’ I didn’t believe a word they said. . . . Will the Lord walk off and leave us for good? . . . Has he angrily stomped off and left us?”) But most caregivers have sometimes silently wondered if God is paying any attention.
But in this psalm, as we see again and again in the Psalms of Lament, the writer moves on from his complaint. Here he savors the memory of God’s blessings in earlier times.
A caregiver weary with the difficulties dogging his days will benefit from doing the same. We can begin by remembering God’s mighty acts recorded in Scripture. And then hopefully we can recall answered prayers, changed lives, and renewed strength in our own lives as God has shown himself near.
Two media can help us with this.
The first is the dramatic portrayal of Asaph presenting this psalm for the very first time for King David’s approval, as depicted in Season 3 of The Chosen.
The second is a haunting a capella rendition of “O Love That Will Not Let Me Go,” an old hymn whose writer says his troubles cannot overwhelm him when he hearkens back to the unending provision of our Creator.
God has not walked off and left us for good. Today’s psalm bids us continue to seek him for what we need today.
Read: Psalm 77
Watch: “King David hears Psalm 77 for the very first time,” The Chosen, Season 3
Listen: “Oh Love That Will Not Let Me Go,” Westminster Chorus
Pray: “O Joy that seekest me through pain, I cannot close my heart to thee. I trace the rainbow through the rain, and feel the promise is not vain, that morn shall tearless be.”—George Matheson