“Your wrath has swept over me; your terrors have destroyed me. All day long they surround me like a flood; they have completely engulfed me. You have taken from me friend and neighbor—darkness is my closest friend.”

Psalm 88:16-18

The psalmist in our reading today had gone through an extremely difficult situation. He expresses his feelings of being depressed, forgotten, grieved, outcast, and terrified. The range of emotions we read about in Psalm 88 can be overwhelming. In his cry to God, he wonders if God is ever present. The ending of the psalm is probably the most depressing: ‘darkness is my closest friend’ (v. 18). It is not surprising that this psalm is acknowledged as the saddest psalm of lament.

However, the psalmist’s hope is found not in its ending but in its beginning: ‘Lord, you are the God who saves me; day and night I cry out to you’ (v. 1). Before he pours out his lament and gives a long list of things that have gone wrong in his life, the psalmist declares his hope in the Lord, even through his experiences of the dark night of the soul and the silence of God. Throughout this psalm, he continues to cry out to God repeatedly (vv. 1, 2, 9, 13), not to any other gods or persons. The psalmist has the quiet confidence that God hears him. His dark seasons in life do not mean that God is absent, but rather how much he desperately needs God.

APPLY

Remember that in the darkness of life, we need God even more. He will never leave nor forsake us.

CLOSING PRAYER

I look to you, Father, for those who are suffering, particularly those prone to depression. Help them to feel your presence; comfort them with your love.

(From Encounter with God)