Praying in Ugly Times
Let’s face it, these are ugly times. We don’t know why this pandemic has become this ugly around the world. We want to pray, but we’re not sure how. I know I’m not, so I turned to the Psalms, 150 prayers that teach us how to pray the good, the bad and the ugly. The community that compiled them understood that all of life, not just the good, is of concern to the Lord God and therefore part of the conversation of prayer to God. The psalms, as John Calvin described them, are “an ‘anatomy of the soul,’ fully articulating every facet of the cost and joy of life with God.” [1] Easily, this pandemic classifies as ‘the cost’ or ‘the ugly’ of life.
I know many people who, like me, have turned to the Psalms in these times. Some encourage their friends to read Psalm 91 for assurance and comfort. Someone referred to it as ‘the protection psalm,’ as though it had some magical quality; repeat it often enough and you will be protected. There’s nothing magic about this psalm or any other. I agree, it’s a beautiful and comforting psalm, unless…. Unless your loved one succumbed to “the deadly pestilence” (v3). Unless the “scourge came near your tent” (v10). Unless you feel guilty at the words of v14, “Those who love me, I will deliver; I will protect those who know my name,” accusing yourself of not loving God enough or knowing God’s name. Unless you lost the battle to covid-19 and v16 now seems like mockery: “With long life I will satisfy them, and show them my salvation.”
Okay, so I’ll admit I’m being rather cynical. But, before you right me off, please keep reading. I too love Psalm 91, but I read it in context with the other 149 psalms. It’s a psalm about the good and gives me hope that we’ll get through this ugly time that we’re forced to go through it whether we like it or not. Good psalms are great, but the Psalter also consists of many, if not more, ‘bad and ugly’ psalms. The bad and ugly psalms are called lament, which basically means complaint and, as N. T. Wright suggests, lament “is what happens when people ask, ‘Why?’ and don’t get an answer.”[2]
The psalmists frequently ask why. Often they ask why God seems absent; why God isn’t present to deliver them. They keep asking because they don’t get answers. I suspect many of us today are asking why and remain in the dark with our unanswered questions. We can identify with the psalmist who asked, “Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?” (10:1). And with the one who begged, just a few psalms later, “How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me” (13:1)? Jesus experienced God’s absence as he hung on the cross, asking the same question, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Ps 22:1; see Mt 27:46). By the time we get to Psalm 88, the psalmist is in a deep hole of darkness that just gets deeper. The lament is raw: “You have put me in the depths of the Pit, in the regions dark and deep” (v6). It ends in despair, “You have taken from me friend and neighbor—darkness is my closest friend” (v18, NIV). Not only is God absent, so are the pray-er’s friends and neighbors. Sounds pretty close to what many people around the globe are experiencing right now as they live in lockdown situations, many away from family and friends who are unable to visit or be with them.
Now it’s true that most of the lament psalms (Pss 38 and 88 being the two exceptions) always include hopeful words of praise and comfort. Psalm 13, for instance, concludes: “I will sing to the LORD, because he has dealt bountifully with me” (v6). Laments come from people who have a deep sense of God’s presence even though God feels absent and uninvolved, and therefore they can also offer praise even though they don’t feel better. Their faith may be in tatters, but, because they’re able to lament, they’re also able to cling to the truth of God’s promise to be with them. Lament, which includes our cynicism, doubt, anxieties and why questions, belongs in God’s presence just as much as praise. Lament, more than praise, helps us deal with the bad and the ugly, not by denying negative emotions but by helping us own and hold them without becoming overwhelmed by them. The psalms of lament give us words to express the rawness of our emotions and the despair of our thoughts with honesty and vulnerability, and express them in God’s presence and then leave them there.
In this, the worst international crisis of my lifetime, I have again turned to the psalms. One, Psalm 77, has become particularly meaningful, teaching me important lessons about prayer in these troubled times. I share three lessons, indeed gifts with you.
First, the opening verses resonated with me because I feel like this is where I’m at today: “I cry aloud to God, aloud to God, that he may hear me. In the day of my trouble I seek the Lord.” We’re in trouble, we’re crying out aloud to God and we’re not alone. Others have been there and cried aloud before us. This psalm gives me permission to make my lament a loud cry in the presence of a God who understands and who laments with me; a God who can contain my cynical thoughts and raw emotions.
Second, I was gifted with the reminder that an important task for God’s people is to remember and then meditate on God’s mighty acts in the past. Half way through, after a despondent complaint, the pray-er says, “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” (vv11f). If ever we needed to pause and ‘call to mind’, that is re-member (own it again), and meditate on what God has done, that time is now. Remember a personal experience when God intervened; remember community or national events that were evidence of God’s mighty power. Most importantly, call to mind stories of God’s mighty acts revealed in Scripture. And, if your memory about biblical stories fails you, open your Bible and read about them again. As I write this, Easter is just around the corner. This would be a good time to read again the Easter story in one of the four Gospels. Or, like this psalmist, who called to mind God’s mighty act of deliverance from Egyptian slavery, spend time reading about that in Exodus 12 and see the parallels with the Easter story of Jesus’ might act of redemption. The psalmist doesn’t retell the exodus story but depicts it in poetic symbolism (vv16-20). Find space, daily would be good, to call to mind God’s mighty acts.
The third gift I received were a few words in v19. The psalmist said to the Lord: “Your way was through the sea, your path, through the mighty waters.” Sea and mighty waters in the Bible, are usually symbolic of evil or troubled times. God’s way, said the psalmist, is to take the people through bad times and not immediately lift them out. Today, we’re in mighty (think troubled) waters; we want God to quickly lift us out, but we’re told God’s way is through them, even though, the psalmist adds, God’s “footprints were unseen.” When I read those words, I felt a sense of relief. Frankly, it describes our experience today. We’ve been tossed into the unchartered waters of a global pandemic and all its consequences, trying to find our way. There’s no GPS or hard-copy-map to show the way. And, God’s footprints are indeed unseen. All we can do is trust, as v20 claims, that God will lead us like a flock. Even though we can’t see God’s footprints, we can rely on and seek to discern God’s leading; seeking ways to be Christian by loving God and our neighbor, in these days of troubled waters.
I’m reminded of the words of God in Isaiah: “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you” (Is 43:2). God is with us in this pandemic. God’s footprints may be unseen, but God is with us. And if I pause to listen and look I will see God’s guidance and move forward, bit by bit, in the right direction. I will experience the grace to handle whatever may come my way.
Praying the psalms, all 150 of them, is one of the oldest and most practiced of the spiritual disciplines. Even Jesus prayed the psalms, probably daily, as was Jewish custom. I’m grateful that I got into this ancient rhythm of daily praying the psalms. I pray them from Psalm 1 all the way through to Psalm 150, and then I start all over again. Psalms have given me so many gifts in times that are good and bad and, like today, downright ugly. I encourage you to join saints around the globe and keep praying through the Psalter, letting each psalm train you in prayer that is honest and real. Pray the laments that fit our situation today, and pray the praises to assure you of a hope-filled future.
By Jackie L. Smallbones, ThD
Orange City, Iowa. April 2020©
_____________
[1] In Walter Brueggemann, The Message of the Psalms. 1984: 17.
[2] https://time.com/5808495/coronavirus-christianity/.
I know many people who, like me, have turned to the Psalms in these times. Some encourage their friends to read Psalm 91 for assurance and comfort. Someone referred to it as ‘the protection psalm,’ as though it had some magical quality; repeat it often enough and you will be protected. There’s nothing magic about this psalm or any other. I agree, it’s a beautiful and comforting psalm, unless…. Unless your loved one succumbed to “the deadly pestilence” (v3). Unless the “scourge came near your tent” (v10). Unless you feel guilty at the words of v14, “Those who love me, I will deliver; I will protect those who know my name,” accusing yourself of not loving God enough or knowing God’s name. Unless you lost the battle to covid-19 and v16 now seems like mockery: “With long life I will satisfy them, and show them my salvation.”
Okay, so I’ll admit I’m being rather cynical. But, before you right me off, please keep reading. I too love Psalm 91, but I read it in context with the other 149 psalms. It’s a psalm about the good and gives me hope that we’ll get through this ugly time that we’re forced to go through it whether we like it or not. Good psalms are great, but the Psalter also consists of many, if not more, ‘bad and ugly’ psalms. The bad and ugly psalms are called lament, which basically means complaint and, as N. T. Wright suggests, lament “is what happens when people ask, ‘Why?’ and don’t get an answer.”[2]
The psalmists frequently ask why. Often they ask why God seems absent; why God isn’t present to deliver them. They keep asking because they don’t get answers. I suspect many of us today are asking why and remain in the dark with our unanswered questions. We can identify with the psalmist who asked, “Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?” (10:1). And with the one who begged, just a few psalms later, “How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me” (13:1)? Jesus experienced God’s absence as he hung on the cross, asking the same question, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Ps 22:1; see Mt 27:46). By the time we get to Psalm 88, the psalmist is in a deep hole of darkness that just gets deeper. The lament is raw: “You have put me in the depths of the Pit, in the regions dark and deep” (v6). It ends in despair, “You have taken from me friend and neighbor—darkness is my closest friend” (v18, NIV). Not only is God absent, so are the pray-er’s friends and neighbors. Sounds pretty close to what many people around the globe are experiencing right now as they live in lockdown situations, many away from family and friends who are unable to visit or be with them.
Now it’s true that most of the lament psalms (Pss 38 and 88 being the two exceptions) always include hopeful words of praise and comfort. Psalm 13, for instance, concludes: “I will sing to the LORD, because he has dealt bountifully with me” (v6). Laments come from people who have a deep sense of God’s presence even though God feels absent and uninvolved, and therefore they can also offer praise even though they don’t feel better. Their faith may be in tatters, but, because they’re able to lament, they’re also able to cling to the truth of God’s promise to be with them. Lament, which includes our cynicism, doubt, anxieties and why questions, belongs in God’s presence just as much as praise. Lament, more than praise, helps us deal with the bad and the ugly, not by denying negative emotions but by helping us own and hold them without becoming overwhelmed by them. The psalms of lament give us words to express the rawness of our emotions and the despair of our thoughts with honesty and vulnerability, and express them in God’s presence and then leave them there.
In this, the worst international crisis of my lifetime, I have again turned to the psalms. One, Psalm 77, has become particularly meaningful, teaching me important lessons about prayer in these troubled times. I share three lessons, indeed gifts with you.
First, the opening verses resonated with me because I feel like this is where I’m at today: “I cry aloud to God, aloud to God, that he may hear me. In the day of my trouble I seek the Lord.” We’re in trouble, we’re crying out aloud to God and we’re not alone. Others have been there and cried aloud before us. This psalm gives me permission to make my lament a loud cry in the presence of a God who understands and who laments with me; a God who can contain my cynical thoughts and raw emotions.
Second, I was gifted with the reminder that an important task for God’s people is to remember and then meditate on God’s mighty acts in the past. Half way through, after a despondent complaint, the pray-er says, “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” (vv11f). If ever we needed to pause and ‘call to mind’, that is re-member (own it again), and meditate on what God has done, that time is now. Remember a personal experience when God intervened; remember community or national events that were evidence of God’s mighty power. Most importantly, call to mind stories of God’s mighty acts revealed in Scripture. And, if your memory about biblical stories fails you, open your Bible and read about them again. As I write this, Easter is just around the corner. This would be a good time to read again the Easter story in one of the four Gospels. Or, like this psalmist, who called to mind God’s mighty act of deliverance from Egyptian slavery, spend time reading about that in Exodus 12 and see the parallels with the Easter story of Jesus’ might act of redemption. The psalmist doesn’t retell the exodus story but depicts it in poetic symbolism (vv16-20). Find space, daily would be good, to call to mind God’s mighty acts.
The third gift I received were a few words in v19. The psalmist said to the Lord: “Your way was through the sea, your path, through the mighty waters.” Sea and mighty waters in the Bible, are usually symbolic of evil or troubled times. God’s way, said the psalmist, is to take the people through bad times and not immediately lift them out. Today, we’re in mighty (think troubled) waters; we want God to quickly lift us out, but we’re told God’s way is through them, even though, the psalmist adds, God’s “footprints were unseen.” When I read those words, I felt a sense of relief. Frankly, it describes our experience today. We’ve been tossed into the unchartered waters of a global pandemic and all its consequences, trying to find our way. There’s no GPS or hard-copy-map to show the way. And, God’s footprints are indeed unseen. All we can do is trust, as v20 claims, that God will lead us like a flock. Even though we can’t see God’s footprints, we can rely on and seek to discern God’s leading; seeking ways to be Christian by loving God and our neighbor, in these days of troubled waters.
I’m reminded of the words of God in Isaiah: “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you” (Is 43:2). God is with us in this pandemic. God’s footprints may be unseen, but God is with us. And if I pause to listen and look I will see God’s guidance and move forward, bit by bit, in the right direction. I will experience the grace to handle whatever may come my way.
Praying the psalms, all 150 of them, is one of the oldest and most practiced of the spiritual disciplines. Even Jesus prayed the psalms, probably daily, as was Jewish custom. I’m grateful that I got into this ancient rhythm of daily praying the psalms. I pray them from Psalm 1 all the way through to Psalm 150, and then I start all over again. Psalms have given me so many gifts in times that are good and bad and, like today, downright ugly. I encourage you to join saints around the globe and keep praying through the Psalter, letting each psalm train you in prayer that is honest and real. Pray the laments that fit our situation today, and pray the praises to assure you of a hope-filled future.
By Jackie L. Smallbones, ThD
Orange City, Iowa. April 2020©
_____________
[1] In Walter Brueggemann, The Message of the Psalms. 1984: 17.
[2] https://time.com/5808495/coronavirus-christianity/.
