“LORD, my salvation You, O God, supplied;” ~ Psalm 88:1
In wartime, darkness is so daily. You wait each moment for its end viewing darkness through the lens of the light of salvation that the Lord supplies. Night gives way to the break of dawn every 24 hours as a pointer to its final ending when night and darkness will end. The light puts night to sleep until night will be no more. The protective premise that coats you, that you walk and live by in that light is that the Lord is surely coming to save the day.
“And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.” ~ Revelation 22:5
For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. ~ 2 Corinthians 4:6
If your life has been nothing but smooth sailing, you might not relate to much of what follows. But if you’re human and you’ve not yet known sorrow or hurt, singing Psalm 88 you stand through the darkness when the winds shift.
“Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness…” ~ Ephesians 6:11-14
If you have suffered an existential crisis from your youth and can commiserate with Job, singing Psalm 88 is for you as you walk by faith in sorrow’s night.
“From youth I’ve been distressed, about to die;
Your terrors I have borne, distraught was I.
Your burning anger over me has passed,
Your terrors all have cut me off at last.” ~ Psalm 88:15-16
Singing Psalm 88 you stand through the darkness until touched by light
“O let my prayer before Your presence rise,
Your ear incline to hear my pleading cries.
My soul is full of anxious, cares, and gloom;
My weary life draws near the silent tomb.
But unto You, O LORD, for help I’ve cried;
My prayer shall rise to You with morning light.” ~ Psalm 88:2-3,13
Saul murdered God’s people. He had them put to death because they were following Christ. Jesus stopped him on the road to Damascus:
Now as he went on his way, he approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven shone around him. And falling to the ground, he heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” And he said, “Who are you, Lord?” And he said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But rise and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.” The men who were traveling with him stood speechless, hearing the voice but seeing no one. Saul rose from the ground, and although his eyes were opened, he saw nothing. So they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. And for three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank. ~ Acts 9:3-9
“I count as those that to the pit descend;
I’m like the man whose strength is at an end.
As one cast off among the dead am I;
I’m like the slain ones in the grave that lie,
Whom You do not remember anymore,
Those cut off from Your hand where none restore.” ~ Psalm 88:4-5
While in darkness, Saul likely contemplated what he deserved. Saul, also called Paul, went from persecuting Jesus to the most hard-working apostle because of the grace that was shown him.
“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” ~ 2 Corinthians 5:21
Just as Jesus wrestled with Jacob to give him a new name, Israel, so he does with each one of his own who are willing to stand through the darkness and surrender to him broken and changed. God perseveres and prevails with those who wrestle, strive, and prevail with him to live a new life.
Can you hear it? There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. You get a new name no matter what you have done in the past. “They got a name for the winners in the world. I, I wanna name when I lose.” Here is something that only the gospel of Jesus can satisfy. Only in Christ is it possible to stand through the darkness and fight off expressive individualism that permeates the rest of the song “Deacon Blues” by Steely Dan about the broken relationships of an expanding man with immature, self-centered dreams. The protagonist of the song near the end sings, “I cried when I wrote this song.” Being “free” to do whatever you want whenever you want leaves you a captive with big regrets afterwards. Only God is free to do all that he pleases and have it always be good.
“He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it.” ~ Revelation 2:17
Even if, like Jacob, Paul, and those who live like Deacon Blues, you have messed up big in the past, you are a new creation in Christ. You are more than a conqueror in Christ Jesus who leads you to something better, something new.
Like the lovers in the fantasy film, Ladyhawke, who were cursed as the woman turned into a hawk by day and the man turned into a wolf by night, the curse of our sin separates us from our God. By the promise of Jesus’ touch the curse is broken. You stand through the darkness full of hope as you await his full, rich embrace where sorrow and joy meet as one in Jesus.
Jesus said, “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.” Some of the Pharisees near him heard these things, and said to him, “Are we also blind?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your guilt remains. ~ John 9:39-41
Blindness and guilt remain with those who claim to see but don’t really see. Distress has a way of getting under our façade of vision dislodging our bespectacled masks. Impression management goes out the window and the admission of blindness sinks in. Knowing you don’t see is the first step to crying out to Jesus for help that he might open your eyes. You will stand through the darkness transformed with new eyes that see the light of truth, with a renewed mind that lives by faith and not by sight.
“My former friends You have a estranged from me;
Yes, their abhorrence You have made me be.
Shut up am I, imprisoned here must stay;
Through deep distress my eyes both waste away.” ~ Psalm 88:8-9
Singing Psalm 88 you stand through the darkness amidst breaking waves
“O LORD, why cast my soul away from You?
Why do You keep Your face hid from my view?” ~ Psalm 88:14
Even as sorrows over your losses and failures threaten to cling tightly to your soul, the rolling waves break over you until their memories fade, replaced by the new ones that the Lord Jesus has for you when he gives you your new name. Jesus helps you to persevere through affliction and stand through the darkness while he is silent. Jesus waited out the time between the cross and the empty tomb. You wait out the present time until he comes again.
“Will You Your wonders make the dead to know?
And shall the dead arise Your praise to show?
Shall Your great love be in the grave extolled?
Your faithfulness be in destruction told?
In darkness will Your wonders be confessed?
Where mem’ries fade who knows Your righteousness?” ~ Psalm 88:10-12
You pause at the Selah.
If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light about me be night,”
even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is bright as the day,
for darkness is as light with you.
For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. ~ Psalm 139:11-13
Darkness need not be dark to you either, those of you who died to your old self and were born again as a new creation into the light of Christ. Jesus went through death’s darkness as the firstborn from the dead. You follow Jesus through death, our last enemy, that becomes the doorway through which you pass to rise with him. In death, you stand through the darkness to the greatest life that will never end.
“By You within the lowest pit I’m laid,
In deeps and in the place of darkest shade.
On me Your anger pressed down heavily,
And all your breaking waves afflicted me.” ~ Psalm 88:6-7
You pause at the Selah. Simultaneous factors like strong currents, wind, and wave systems can interact in such a way as to bring rogue waves about in the middle of the ocean that can reach heights of up to 100 feet. It's as if anxious energy builds up to form these monstrous waves that would prove quite dangerous to any boat within the vicinity of its breaking.
Rogue waves are analogous to the emotional, physical, psychological, financial, and relational pressures that interconnect and mount up like the perfect storm with breaking waves that can break and crush us. Meditating on the one who is in control of every breaking wave motivates you to approach the throne of grace with confidence through life’s storms of cascading troubles. All day and night before God you cry out with the earnest petitions of a child to his loving father. Each petition says in so many words, “I am yours. Save me. I am counting on you, Lord Jesus, and on no one or nothing else. I am relying on you, Father, trusting in you, Holy Spirit, to guide me, help me, comfort, counsel, and save me in Christ.”
And a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already filling. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. He said to them, “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?” And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” ~ Mark 4:37-41
The Lord has saved you. The Lord is saving you. The Lord will save you. It doesn’t matter how low you are laid in the pit or how high the waves are that break over you.
You plead until the last anxious wave breaks over your head.
The Lord has heard the thoughts of your mind:
You will say in that day:
“I will give thanks to you, O LORD,
for though you were angry with me,
your anger turned away,
that you might comfort me.
“Behold, God is my salvation;
I will trust, and will not be afraid;
for the LORD GOD is my strength and my song,
and he has become my salvation.” ~ Isaiah 12:1-2
Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, “I believed, and so I spoke,” we also believe, and so we also speak, knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence. For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.
So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. ~ 2 Corinthians 4:13-18
“O LORD, I’ve daily called upon your name,
Spread forth my hands Your gracious help to claim.” ~ Psalm 88:9
Singing Psalm 88 you stand through the darkness as a vehicle to home
“All day like floods Your terrors ‘round me surged.
They cover me; by them I’ve been submerged.
By You I am of all my friends bereft,
And those who loved me are in darkness left.” ~ Psalm 88:17-18
Every rogue friendship keenly felt is but a fading memory that is seen and therefore transient. That Jesus is with you and calls you his friend is both unseen and eternal and is all you need now to stand through the darkness until he, without a doubt, carries you home.
Then came one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues and spoke to me, saying, “Come, I will show you the Bride, the wife of the Lamb.” ~ Revelation 21:9
“LORD, my salvation You, O God, supplied;
O let my prayer before Your presence rise,
Your ear incline to hear my pleading cries.” ~ Psalm 88:1-2
August 16-23, 2024
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