Psalm 88 – When Darkness Comes
Will your wonders be known in the darkness or your righteousness in the land of oblivion? But I call to you for help, Lord; in the morning my prayer meets you. (Psalms 88:12-13)
“Hello darkness, my old friend.” That old song lyric is now a meme teenagers respond with when their friends post something depressing. It comes directly from the last line of this Psalm: “You have distanced loved one and neighbor from me; darkness is my only friend” (88:18). You can’t find a Psalm that ends on a more depressing note than this. Most end with at least a line or two of faith and praise. But this Psalmist has nearly run out of hope.
Still, he finds the faith to lift his experiences and feelings up to God, rather than simply wallowing in them and making himself feel worse than he even did before. While he goes to sleep in tears, he still has confidence that God can bring comfort and renewal by the morning: “I call to you for help, Lord; in the morning my prayer meets you.” He might be anticipating his own death before the morning, in which case he can look forward to a better life with God than he had here on earth. Whatever his true feelings are, we can imitate his habit of taking all our emotions — good and bad — to the Lord.
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