In March of 1795, after he had been laboring as a missionary in India for two years, William Carey wrote in his journal, reflecting back on the last two days, “Much to complain of, such another dead soul I think scarcely exists in the World. I can only compare myself to one banished from all his friends, and Wandering in an irksome Solitude.”¹

It’s easy to remember our heroes in the faith simply in light of what God did through them and forget that they had days, months, or even years when their lives can be described by Carey’s journal entry. Days or seasons in which we feel dead in our souls, lonely, fearful, and seemingly beyond comfort are not something experienced by only a few believers. Rather, if you have been a believer for much time at all you know this struggle; you know what it’s like to feel so troubled and lifeless in your soul that you don’t know how you’re going to go on. You are full of doubts, questions, fears, as if they are a deep pit and you don’t know how to get yourself out.

What do you do in those times? Many of the psalms are devoted to helping us answer this question. There is an entire category of psalms called lament psalms in which the author is speaking from those very situations. Typically we don’t know the exact situation the psalmist is in, we don’t know what’s causing his pain, fear, anxiety, or hurt, but we know clearly that his soul is aching and he is lamenting. And it appears that these psalms are given to us so that they might be an example for us over and over, directing us as to how to handle our times when we feel we can do nothing but lament. Just as psalms which are psalms of praise call us to worship and instruct us as to why and how we worship (as we saw last week), lament psalms instruct us in how we handle situations where are souls are like that which Carey described in his journal entry.

Therefore, this morning I want us to look at Psalm 77 and see how the psalmist instructs us in dealing with these times as we look to see what he himself does in this time. First, we see that …

We need to cry out to God because we are often at war with ourselves (1-3)

The psalmist begins with prayer. He cries out to God. He writes, “I cry 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 …” (vv. 1-2). His first move in the ‘day of [his] trouble’ is to pray. He cries out to God.

And specifically he cries out to God because he knows that he finds no comfort within himself. He says he is stretching out his hand continually in prayer as “my soul refuses to be comforted” (v. 2). He goes on, “When I remember God, I moan; when I meditate, my spirit faints” (v. 3). His soul is not eased. In fact, he says that his soul is rebelling against comfort. It refuses to be comforted. When he think of God his soul moans and his spirit faints.

The picture is one where he is at war with himself. He cannot flee from the enemy, for the enemy is within him. In a letter that has become one of my favorite to read and reflect on, Luther wrote to Melanchthon in one such occasion, “I beg you, who are so pugnacious in everything else, fight against yourself, your own worst enemy, for you furnish Satan with too many weapons against yourself.”²

Oftentimes the greatest source of our struggles, our anxieties, and our fears is us. Our souls revolt against our desire, we deceive ourselves, we refuse to accept what is best for us, and our souls love holding to our pain, fear, and trouble more than letting it go. As the psalmist puts it, “my soul refuses to be comforted.”

Because that is the case you need someone outside of yourself to help you and deliver you. You need one who is not in the quicksand of your struggles to reach from sturdy ground and lift you out. That’s why the psalmist cries to the Lord.

We’ve seen this so many times in lament psalms, but we are reminded of it again. When you are in times of internal turmoil, in the day of trouble, seek the Lord in prayer. Cry out to him, lift your arms to him, plead for him to help you, knowing you cannot do it on your own, and trust that he will hear you and help you.

Next, we can see that …

We need to speak our thoughts and fears so that they might be judged against Scripture (4-9)

As the psalmist cries out to the Lord, he directs his hurt to God. He accuses him of not letting him sleep and pours out his questions. He writes, “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’” (vv.4-6).

He can’t sleep. He is so troubled he can’t speak. And he remembers when times were better, when he would sing songs in the night and meditate in his heart. But now his spirit is not comforted but rather doubts. Instead of comfort he is full of questions. He writes, “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?” (vv.6-9).

The psalmist is now letting loose. It’s as everything he’s really wondering is now coming out. He’s hiding nothing. This is not guarded language. He’s not worrying about offending anyone. He’s speaking to the Lord and he cries out with all of his questions: “Has God’s love ceased? Have his promises ended? Has he forgotten to be gracious and compassionate?” These are the thoughts that are haunting him and have him nestled in his doubt and despair. And I think the reason the Lord sees fit for the psalmist to pen these words as a part of Holy Scripture is because this is a helpful pattern in lamenting. It is good to speak our thoughts, even our haunting and depressing thoughts, to the Lord.

Definitely one of the greatest gifts in my life is my wife, Lili. She is everything I think a wife should be and am delighted at walking through life with her at my side. She loves me and seeks to do that which is most loving for me. And one of those times when she most clearly expressed that love to me was a few years back when I was going through a dark night of the soul. I was doubting about everything. I was worried that Cornerstone was going to shut our doors. It was bad. And these thoughts were haunting me. I could do nothing without these things hanging over my head. As a friend of mine has described in these times, it felt like in everything I did there were two swords waiting to pounce across my neck. I would go to read the Bible and pray but felt dead. I would go to write and felt paralyzed. My thoughts and my doubts had rendered me almost useless. And this went on for a while.

Then the night came when I was sitting and talking with Lili and she said, “Now tell me all the thoughts that are bothering you.” So I did. And it sounded much like the psalmist here in verses 7-9. I spilled out all my thoughts and fears, clearly spelling them out for the first time to another person. And then came from my wife the most loving and needed response she could have given. She said, “That’s crazy, Lee. You know that’s not true. That’s not going to happen. That’s ridiculous.” She wasn’t making light of me. Even those words she said respectfully. But she was pointing out that my thoughts were simply unrealistic and often in direct contrast with what the Bible says. And I think I even knew it myself as the words were coming out.

The problem was, however, that was the first time I had ever spoken them. When I did not address them, they seemed weighty and realistic. However, once I spoke them, they were absurd. It was like a child going to bed every night afraid of the shadows until his parent points out the shadows are caused by the child’s stuffed animals. Until the truth of our fears are spelled out they can be paralyzing. But once we speak them, then we can compare them to the truth, to God’s Word.

I think that’s the blessing of verses 7-9. The psalmist begins to ask his questions; he speaks them so that they can be addressed. And they are absurd thoughts, aren’t they? Is it possible for God to spurn forever, when his Word tells us he will never leave us or forsake us? Is it possible for his steadfast love to cease when every other line in Psalm 136 declares, “His steadfast love endures forever” so that by the end of the psalm you’ve read the line twenty-six times in twenty-six verses? Is it possible for God’s promises to end when the Scripture declares that God will not lie? Is it possible for God to forget to be gracious and shut up his compassion when he reveals his name to Moses as “the Lord, the Lord, the gracious and compassionate God”?

No. These things are absurd! They directly contradict God’s revelation of himself. But they are the real fears of the psalmist. These are the thoughts that have thrown him into despair. These are the thoughts that spring from his soul as it refuses to be comforted. They are real fears but they are not realistic fears. And this is the advantage of speaking our thoughts, fears, and troubles to God. It allows us to look at them and compare them to Scripture.

It could be today that many of you are weighed down by real fears that simply aren’t realistic. And so you need to speak to God and declare your fears and your concerns. Cast them before the Lord, and it may be that you see that your fears are as realistic as the child’s fears in the night of the shadows on his wall.

But here you might ask, “Yes, but what about when your soul refuses to acknowledge that these are unrealistic fears? What about when your soul refuses to agree with what is true?” Then you present to your soul over and over again the truth of Scripture, the words and acts of God. That’s exactly what the psalmist does beginning in verses 10-12.

In these verses we can see that …

We need to look at God’s works so that we see him and our situation rightly (10-12)

Just as the psalmist has voiced his questions before his soul that refuses to be comforted, he declares, “Then I said, ‘I will appeal to this, to the years of the right hand of the Most High.’ I will remember the deeds of the LORD; yes, I will remember your wonders of old. I will ponder all your work, and meditate on your mighty deeds’” (vv. 10-12).

In the midst of his struggles, in the midst of his soul refusing to be comforted, and in the midst of his doubts and questions he forces himself to look at the years of the Lord’s work. He will not allow his present thoughts and feelings to triumph. He forces himself to behold God’s works, and not just during a few days but the years of his works – his works of old. He makes himself think on them, ponder them, and meditate on them.

During situations where we struggle to asses God and our situations rightly, we need to think on the Word and specifically to remember what God has done. Something that is easily overlooked in the Scripture but holds a place of great prominence is the need and the command by God to us to remember. In Deuteronomy 8, as the Lord is addressing Israel before entering the promise land, the common theme is that they remember God and what he has done. Just a sampling throughout that chapter the Lord declares, “And you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years … Take care lest you forget the LORD your God … You shall remember the Lord your God … And if you forget the LORD your God … you shall surely perish (vv. 2, 11, 18-19). In the same way, when the Lord shared the last supper with his disciples, giving them the bread and the cup, he declared, “Do this in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:20).

We are a people who need to remember the works of God. It is a command, and it is helpful. We may be tempted to underestimate the need to remember; God does not. In times of struggle and doubt, we remember what God has done; we remember the works of God.

Recently as I was cleaning off my bookshelves I found a notebook slid in the back, and as I opened it, I found out it was my journal from 1999-2000. It was actually a journal that I gave to Lili when I asked her to marry me because so many of the pages were filled with my thoughts about her. I remember at the time thinking that this was a great gift and great encouragement. However, as I flipped back through the journal now seven years later I thought, “This was a terrible gift. This must have horrified her.” As she read it, maybe she thought I was giving it to her more as a warning about me than an honor to her, because even as I spoke about Lili on most every page, I also talked about my anxieties in life, my fears, my doubts, my concerns, and about being so confused in certain situations that I felt paralyzed. I can imagine Lili reading that and looking at her engagement ring, thinking, “Did I really say, ‘Yes’?”

But as I read back over it, I also thought about how so many of these concerns and worries were no longer concerns and worries in my life. Things at the time that were a source of so much anxiety, fear, and trouble were dealt with by the Lord. And as I sat there I couldn’t help but think that I would one day be saying the same thing about my present struggles as well. It is good to remember God’s works in the past, for it helps us to see God and our situations rightly.

Yet, the author points us to one specific thing we need to remember, namely, …

We need to remember the gospel and preach it to ourselves (13-20)

The psalmist ends the psalm remember something very specific, God’s deliverance of his people from captivity in Egypt. He writes, “Your way, O God, is holy. What god is great like our God? You are the God who works wonders; you have made known your might among the peoples. You with your arm redeemed your people, the children of Jacob and Joseph. When the waters saw you, O God, when the waters saw you, they were afraid; indeed, the deep trembled. The clouds poured out water; the skies gave forth thunder; your arrows flashed on every side. The crash of your thunder was in the whirlwind; your lightnings lighted up the world; the earth trembled and shook. You way was through the sea, your path through the great waters; yet your footprints were unseen. You led your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron” (vv. 13-20).

The psalmist remembers God’s deliverance of his people from Egypt. He declares, therefore, that God is holy, unlike any God. He remembers that he redeemed his people, demonstrating the power of his right hand, controlling the weather and the sea. He remembers how he parted the waters, and though one could only see Moses or Aaron leading, the psalmist knee the Lord’s footprints were leading the way.

The psalmist begins with a soul that refuses to be comforted, and by the end he’s celebrating the Lord’s deliverance. How does he get there? It is by looking at the gospel and proclaiming it to himself.

And so it is with us. The key thing we need to remember and proclaim to ourselves in times when fears and doubts weigh on us is the gospel. There was never a time when you were more weak or helpless, and yet God saved you by sending his Son. Therefore, what is now compared to then? How does your need now compare to your need then? When you were most needy and should have been most fearful, God brought to you your greatest need. Therefore, remember that, preach that to yourself, and trust that the God who have shown himself gracious and shown you to be the object of his love will continue. As John Newton has written, “Tis grace has brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home.”

So, what do you do when your journal entry could look like that of William Carey in March of 1795? You cry out to God to help you, you voice all your fears and doubts to him, you remind yourself of the great works of God, and you preach to yourself that message that reminds you that God has met your greatest need. You preach to yourself the gospel. That is how we minister to ourselves when our souls refuse to be comforted.

Therefore, may we even do this now as we come to the table, doing that about which the Lord said, “Do this in remembrance of me.” Amen.

¹Terry G. Carter, The Journal and Selected Letters of William Carey (Macon, GA: Smith and Helwys Publishing, 2000), 56.

²Martin Luther, Luther: Letters of Spiritual Counsel, Vol. 18 of Library of Christian Classics, ed. Theodore G. Trappert (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1955), 146-7.

WHEN YOUR SOUL REFUSES COMFORT