Desperate Prayers

Psalm 88:11-18

11Can those in the grave declare your unfailing love?

In the place of destruction, can they proclaim your faithfulness?

12Can the darkness speak of your miracles?

Can anyone in the land of forgetfulness talk about your righteousness?

13O LORD, I cry out to you.

I will keep on pleading day by day.

14O LORD, why do you reject me?

Why do you turn your face away from me?

15I have been sickly and close to death since my youth.

I stand helpless and desperate before your terrors.

16Your fierce anger has overwhelmed me.

Your terrors have cut me off.

17They swirl around me like floodwaters all day long.

They have encircled me completely.

18You have taken away my companions and loved ones;

only darkness remains.

Things did not look good for King Hezekiah. He had become very ill, and the prophet Isaiah told him, “Set your affairs in order, for you are going to die” (Isaiah 38:1).

Hezekiah’s response is heartbreaking. He “turned his face to the wall” and cried out to God, “Remember, O Lord, how I have always tried to be faithful to you. . . .” After this “he broke down and wept bitterly” (Isaiah 38:2-3).

Hezekiah’s sadness resembles the sadness of Psalm 88. Like Hezekiah, the psalmist felt close to death. But unlike Hezekiah, the psalmist ends his words with “darkness.” Hezekiah got a reprieve instead. After hearing the king’s prayer, God sent another message: “I will add fifteen years to your life” (Isaiah 38:5). When Hezekiah recovered, he composed a song of thanks and praise.

At the end of Hezekiah’s song, he rejoices: “You have rescued me from death and have forgiven all my sins. . . . Think of it—the Lord has healed me! I will sing his praises with instruments every day of my life in the Temple of the Lord” (Isaiah 38:17-20).

Like Hezekiah and the psalmist, you may be feeling overwhelmed by your present situation. Go ahead and mourn with Psalm 88, but don’t stay in the pit. Pray to God, who is more than able to help you, enabling you to climb with Hezekiah into a song of thanksgiving and praise.

I’ll praise Him while He lends me breath;

And when my voice is lost in death,

Praise shall employ my nobler powers;

My days of praise shall ne’er be past,

While life, and thought, and being last,

Or immortality endures.

ISAAC WATTS

Bible Networking

Jesus knew the grief that comes with suffering. Read Isaiah 53:3; Matthew 26:38; Mark 14:33-34; and Luke 22:44.

Notable Quotable

William Wordsworth quotes Psalm 88 in his poem “The Excursion”:

Mournful, deep and slow

The cadence, as of psalms—a funeral dirge!

We listened, looking down upon the hut,

But seeing no one; meanwhile from below

The strain continued, spiritual as before;

But now distinctly could I recognize

These words: “Shall in the grave thy love be known,

In death thy faithfulness?”