“My voice rises to God,
and I will cry aloud”
[Psalms 77]
As I prepared for the New Year, I decided the New Year's motto, "Let’s devote ourselves to prayer!’ This motto is based on Acts 1:14 – “These all with one mind were continually devoting themselves to prayer, along with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with His brothers.” We want to gather together like the members of the early church, hold on to the word of promise, and pray with our hearts.
John Calvin gave these five presuppositions for prayer: (1) First, it is God's tender invitation. God is in the lead when it comes to prayer. He gave us the word of promise and also commanded us to pray. (2) The second presupposition is Jesus, the Mediator. All prayer is possible through the work of reconciliation and intercession of Christ. The prayer that is worthy in the eyes of God and that He is pleased with must be the prayer that Jesus, the Mediator, sanctifies. (3) The third presupposition is the indispensable word of God. Our prayers must be based on the Word of God, molded, and guided by His Word. Prayer takes hold of the word of promise God has given us and calls out to God by relying on it. 'It is to pretend to pray the person who prays without believing the word of the promise.' (4) The fourth presupposition is the role of the Holy Spirit. The Scriptures in Romans 8:26 explain this premise: “In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.” (5) The fifth and final presupposition is the importance of faith. Faith is the foundation and necessary condition of true prayer. 'Faith is strengthened by prayer, and prayer is influenced by faith' (Internet).
If we look at Psalms 77:1, the psalmist says: “My voice rises to God, and I will cry aloud; My voice rises to God, and He will hear me.” I would like to receive lessons given by meditating on the psalmist's prayer in two ways under the heading “My voice rises to God and I will cry aloud” based on Psalms 77.
The first thing I want to meditate on is when the psalmist cried out to God with his voice. We can think of it as two:
First, the psalmist cried out to God with his voice when his soul refused to be comforted.
Look at Psalms 77:2 – “In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord; In the night my hand was stretched out without weariness; My soul refused to be comforted.” When the psalmist was in deep agony during the day of tribulation facing Israel nationally, he didn’t let go of his prayers and prayed until God answered his prayers. The psalmist who prayed so earnestly confesses that his soul refused to be comforted until God answered his prayers. In other words, the psalmist is saying that only when God answers his prayers can his soul be comforted. How was the soul of the psalmist who refused to be comforted?
(1) The spirit of the psalmist grows faint.
Look at Psalms 77:3 – “When I remember God, then I am disturbed; When I sigh, then my spirit grows faint. Selah.” To say that his spirit grows faint means that the psalmist's soul was anxious and distressed. Why, then, was the psalmist's soul anxious and distressed? The reason was because he thought of God. In other words, the psalmist’s spirit grew faint with anxiety and distress because it was not the same as what God had done to him in the past, but because he thought He was covering His face or as if He was angry (Park).
(2) The spirit of the psalmist was so troubled.
Look at Psalms 77:4 – “You have held my eyelids open; I am so troubled that I cannot speak.” The psalmist was so distressed that he couldn’t speak. He couldn't sleep while suffering and meditating because he didn’t know why the suffering he suffered was not over (Park). It may be a good opportunity to hear the voice of the Lord speaking to us when we can't speak because we are struggling in unending suffering and unable to sleep. Like the psalmist, there will be times when our spirits are troubled and so painful that we refuse to receive comfort. At such times, we cannot be comforted by anyone's words or actions. That’s why we are even refused to be comforted by our loved ones around us. At time like this, only God can comfort us. That’s why we cry out to God. Psalms 119:50 comes to my heart: “This is my comfort in my affliction, That Your word has revived me.” Let's hold onto this word of God's promise and cry out to God.
Second, the psalmist cried out to God with his voice when he was in grief.
Look at Psalms 77:10 – “Then I said, "It is my grief, That the right hand of the Most High has changed.” The psalmist's weakness was manifested in his thoughts: “Will the Lord reject forever? And will He never be favorable again? Has His lovingkindness ceased forever? Has His promise come to an end forever? Has God forgotten to be gracious, Or has He in anger withdrawn His compassion? Selah.” Because the psalmist became weak in suffering and pain, eventually in his thoughts, he doubted about God with many questions. These questions were not religious: “Will the Lord reject forever? And will He never be favorable again? Has His lovingkindness ceased forever? …” (vv. 7-8) Can God's lovingkindness toward him and toward us cease as the psalmist thought? Can He ever forget to be gracious to him and us? Can the Lord truly reject us forever? As we know, all these questions are against God's divinity. God never and cannot abandons us. Our God can never forget to be gracious to us. He is the God who is still gracious to us. Our God is the God who loves us, even to the point of giving His begotten Son Jesus. His love is endless.
We are no different from the psalmist. In other words, as the pain and suffering get longer, we also become weaker in spirit and body, so we can have weak thoughts like the psalmist: ‘Will God deliver me from this suffering and pain? How long will He keep looking at me like this? I am sure He isn’t abandoning me. etc.’ At these time, do we cry out to God with our own voice like the psalmist? My personal opinion is that sometimes we cannot open our mouths and pray to God with our voices when we are too weak in mind and body in the midst of suffering and pain. At that time, the Gospel song that I often sang was “Someone is praying for you”: “When it seems that you prayed till your strength is all gone/ And your tears fall like raindrops All the day long/ Jesus cares and He knows just how much you can bear/ He’ll speak your name to someone in prayer/ Someone is praying for you Someone is praying for you/ And when it seems you’re all alone And your heart would break in two/ Remember someone is praying for you.” Another gospel song that I get comforted is “Yearning for God’s love”: “When you’ve been longing for God’s unfailing love/ When you’ve been yearning for God’s perfect peace/ God, our Lord, the Creator of heaven and earth, we know,/Is the One who loves you so/ Our God keeps His eyes upon you/ He’s always watching over you, His children/ God shed His blood to redeem you and me/ Day and night, He inclines His ear to us/ He has shone the light in the darkness/ He has heard your faintest moaning, then/ Wherever you are, lift your eyes to the Lord/ Look up to the Lord, to the Lord alone.”
The last thing I want to meditate on is how the psalmist could cry out to God with his own voice.
It was because he remembered the deeds of the Lord in the past.
Look at Psalms 77:11 – “I shall remember the deeds of the LORD; Surely I will remember Your wonders of old.” The psalmist did this when his soul refused to be comforted and when he was weak: “I have considered the days of old, The years of long ago. I will remember my song in the night; I will meditate with my heart, And my spirit ponders” (vv. 5-6). He recalled the grace of God in the past when his soul refused to be comforted and when he was weak. Therefore, he wanted to find comfort. And he tried to have a hope for the future. In the meantime, the psalmist was satisfied with the wonders of God, that was, the works of God He had done, and was satisfied with them, and left the future work to God (v. 11, Park). He meditated on all the things of the Lord, and because he pondered the Lord's actions (v. 12), he was able to cry out to God in his own voice (vv. 13-20). The God he meditated on is the holy and great God (v. 13) and the God who reveals His power (v. 14), who redeemed the Israelites (v. 15). He meditated on the miracle of God that delivered the Israelites from Egypt and made them cross the Red Sea (vv. 16-20). Therefore, he could cry out to God in his own voice.
Like the psalmist, when our souls refuse to be comforted in a broken heart and affliction, we must commit all our anxieties to the Lord in prayer while deeply meditating on the saving grace of God in our past lives. Our Lord is clearly a God who listens to our prayers (v. 1). And in His time He will answer our prayers according to His will.
I would like to sing the gospel song “You are my son” with you:
“When I wept in pain, Disappointed with myself and enfeebled,
He said to me, wiping away my tears With His nailed hands.
You are my son, I formed you today.
You are my son, my beloved song.”
With thanksgiving heart to God who comes quietly to me when I am weeping in pain and disappointed with myself and speaks to my heart tenderly,
James Kim
(As my soul is refusing to be comforted until God will fulfill His promise words in my life)