Psalm 77 - Women's Gathering 8/5/23
This is an audio recording from our Women’s Gathering on August 5, 2023 of a teaching by Amelia Schumann.
Has something ever weighed so heavily upon you that you could not sleep? Have you ever been so burdened that you reached your arms out all night long as a cry to God because you could not even speak?
That is the level of turmoil we see here in the beginning of Psalm 77. Let’s read verses 1-9 together.
“I cry aloud to God, aloud to God, and he will hear me.
In the day of my trouble I seek the Lord; in the night my hand is stretched out without wearying; my soul refuses to be comforted.
When I remember God, I moan; when I meditate, my spirit faints.
You hold my eyelids open; I am so troubled that I cannot speak.
I consider the days of old, the years long ago.
I said, “Let me remember my song in the night; let me meditate in my heart.”
Then my spirit made a diligent search:
“Will the Lord spurn forever and never again be favorable?
Has his steadfast love forever ceased?
Are his promises at an end for all time?
Has God forgotten to be gracious?
Has he in anger shut up his compassion?”
The Years of the Right Hand of the Most High
When I first read this psalm, I happened to be experiencing some uncertainty in my life and was doubting God’s love and goodness towards me. Reading these questions, it seemed to me that the psalmist was doing the same.
However, notice that immediately BEFORE asking these questions, he says,
“I consider the days of old, the years long ago. I said, ‘Let me remember my song in the night; let me meditate in my heart.’ Then my spirit made a diligent search.”
Then he states these heavy questions that initially can appear to doubt the integrity of God’s character.
Notice what the psalmist is doing, though. He asks these questions not as one who is shaking his fist at God or truly doubting God’s goodness but as one who needs to hear stated such ludicrous questions in order to jolt himself out of his despair and revel in the reality of who God is. His rhetorical questions, held up against the character and greatness of God, are meant to imply a resounding, Of course not!
Has God’s steadfast love forever ceased? Of course not!
Are his promises at an end for all time? Of course not!
Has God forgotten to be gracious? Of course not!
Has he in anger shut up his compassion? Of course not!
How does the psalmist have such confidence in God’s goodness and faithfulness in the midst of such turmoil? How does he know the answer is the implied of course not even during times when it may feel less certain?
In verses 10-12 he appeals to the years of the right hand of the Most High. He remembers the deeds of the LORD, which stretch back into history far beyond the beginning of his own life. He looks into the history of God’s people Israel and takes note of the faithfulness God displayed in caring for them. He poetically admires and remembers God’s faithfulness, his power, his might, and the fearsome, swift, seemingly nature-defying actions he took to rescue his people from Egypt. He bathes his soul with the truth that God was doing awesome deeds long before the psalmist existed. The psalmist revels in the grandeur of who God is so that his troubled heart will not be tempted to believe that God’s love has ended, that God has forgotten to be gracious, that God is not a promise-keeping God, or that God’s compassion is swallowed up by his anger.
Rather, God is faithful to keep his promises, and his faithfulness is not determined by our perception of our circumstances—whether we believe ourselves to be blessed or to be deprived of blessings.
And this truth about God is where the psalmist finds his comfort and his answers. Like a child hugging his father tightly in the midst of a thunderstorm, the psalmist doesn’t need to know exactly how his unspoken troubles will resolve—he just needs to hold on tightly to his God, to rest assured that God is faithful and won’t abandon him.
The Deeds of the Lord: Jesus’ Perfect Sacrifice
I’d like us to consider this for ourselves. How can we remember who our God is and truly know Him in the midst of our troubles? When the psalmist made a diligent search to remember God’s deeds, he considered the powerful way that God delivered his people from Egypt. He remembered the feat that previous generations had passed down for him to know: that God had mightily moved a monstrous river in order to free his people from slavery in Egypt.
As Christians living after the death and resurrection of Jesus, the Exodus is only the beginning of where we can see God’s faithfulness. When WE remember the deeds of the LORD, we can remember the Exodus, AND the incredible moment when God entered into his own story through the birth of Jesus.
Unlike the psalmists, who only had the beginning of the Old Testament to look at when they wanted to see the deeds of the LORD, we can also look at the portraits of Jesus that we find in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. He healed sick people when no one else could. He cast out demons and nature obeyed him. He raised the dead and he literally reached out to touch the lepers and the unclean people of the world. And rather than being tarnished by them, he cleansed them!
Beyond all of this, he lived a life filled with ONLY goodness, ONLY obedience to his Father, and WITHOUT even the smallest hint of sin. He did all of this to show his ability to save us from OUR slavery - not to Egypt or some other oppressive nation, but from our own sin.
And even more, not only was he ABLE to save us, but he actually accomplished the work necessary to save us. He stooped down low into the greatest human suffering imaginable by taking upon himself the punishment and guilt deserved by every person who becomes his child. What is more, he was not dragged to the cross; he set his face toward Jerusalem and willingly went and even carried the cross himself. He could have given a command and the Romans would have had to release him; after all, every command he ever gave was obeyed whether by people, demons, or natural forces.
But he didn’t. He is a lion who went like a lamb to the slaughter and was whipped and beaten and tortured through a slow, agonizing death which led him to cry out, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”
He did this so that we would never have to cry that. He did it to save us while we were dead in our sins, completely lacking any worth or value aside from what he gives to us. He did it to give us the greatest thing he could: himself—for eternity. He did it while we were still sinners. He did it not because of who we are but because that’s who he is. That’s what he’s like. These are the deeds of the LORD, the years of the right hand of the Most High.
God Has Not Abandoned His Promises
Can you wholeheartedly believe all of that and simultaneously believe that God has forgotten to be gracious or that he has abandoned his promises? Of course not! Why? Because in his work on the cross, Jesus demonstrated that God is faithful where it matters most. He was faithful to purchase our eternal home with him; every other need that we have pales in comparison.
As Paul argues in Romans 8:32,
“He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?”
In other words, nothing can separate us from the love of God. Not our circumstances, our sin, our enemies, or anything else in all creation. If GOd is faithful where it matters most, he will be faithful in every other area as well. So even in the midst of the most sleepless, agonizing dark night—even when we have to say goodbye to someone we love dearly; even when our bodies wear out like the tent that they are this side of heaven; even when we feel utterly alone or deprived of good things that we want most—we can say along with the psalmist,
Has God’s steadfast love forever ceased? Of course not!
Are his promises at an end for all time? Of course not!
Has God forgotten to be gracious? Of course not!
Has he in anger shut up his compassion? Of course not!
So, again I ask, how can we remember and know our God in the midst of our troubles?
First, look at some of the many things God has done in the history of the world.
He extended mercy when Adam and Eve sinned, by promising that a savior would come and crush the Serpent Satan.
He promised to provide a son for Abraham and Sarah and kept that promise even against all human odds.
He delivered Joseph and Joseph’s entire family when his brothers sold him into slavery.
He delivered Israel from slavery in Egypt.
He preserved a remnant of Israel even when they rebelled against Him and were sent into exile.
He was born into our world as a helpless baby who would experience unimaginable suffering to save his people from their sins. And he did all of these mighty acts of deliverance in faithfulness to his promise made to Adam and Eve, that he would crush the serpent— and to his promise to Abraham, to multiply his children like the sand on the beach and bless all nations of the earth through Abraham’s offspring (which is exactly who Jesus is).
Next, look at what God has done in your own life.
If you can’t think of anything, consider this. Even though I might not know you, I can tell you that if you’re trusting in Jesus to save you, the sacrifice He made when he died on the cross to make you his child forever is the greatest thing you could ever receive from him. This is the greatest, strongest tool in your “Remember the deeds of the LORD” toolbelt.
Another helpful tool we’ve discovered in our home is the habit of keeping prayer journals. Each time God answers a prayer, we write the date and what he did. Our kids like to draw pictures of how God answers their prayers. This is a great thing to go back to when we need to remember the deeds of the LORD. Here are a couple of mine:
I asked him to bring a mentor into my life, and a woman reached out to me not long after and asked if she could come over to visit. She encouraged and spoke into my life just the words I needed to hear.
I, and many of you, asked him to spare the life of a very dear family member after a terrible accident, and he did.
I asked him to take away my back pain and scoliosis, and he didn't. But, though it took me a while to see it, he did something better. He gave me the chance to share with an unbeliever his goodness to me in the midst of my pain, and the assurance of the hope I have that one day in heaven, because of Jesus, that pain will be gone.
So, when you’re lying awake in bed at night filled with turmoil, and barely able to speak, consider imitating the example we see in the psalmist. Take the doubts you’re tempted to believe and confront them with the truth of who God is, of his faithfulness both in the history of the world and in your own life. Expose those doubts as the lies they really are, remembering your song in the night—a song of God’s faithfulness to us.