Not my will, but yours
‘But I cry to you for help, Lord; in the morning my prayer comes before you. Why, Lord, do you reject me and hide your face from me?’ — Psalm 88:13–14
Make me more like Jesus. This is something I’ve prayed countless times. But when I think of what I’m praying, I can’t help but notice the size-able gap between who I am and who Jesus is. Me being me and Jesus being the Son of God.
Days like today really test my commitment to that prayer. Today I had a moment of overwhelm. I couldn’t really put into words what this chasm of unknowns was doing to me — ‘it’s just a blob of uncertainty’ as I so eloquently expressed to Kyle. It’s not really comprehensible at the moment but it feels big. Way bigger than me.
At the core of it, my overwhelm came from my lacking direction in career. I guess 10-year-old me still lives within, coping with rising change through tears and incoherent questions. Yet what 10-year-old me didn’t quite understand was the power of prayer, and the one who hears these prayers. She didn’t know who was listening..even when she spoke words like ‘Dear God’ and flipped desperately to random pages of the Bible for comfort in her bedroom. Speak to me, God. Though I don’t know who you are, I know you know me.
When I read the psalmist’s words in Psalm 88, I hear a similar sort of desperation. This disorienting place of wrestling with God. It feels like your words are not being heard, but avoided. It feels like your requests are thrown into the wind, no matter how loud your desires shout. I have nothing else to give. My best attempts at trusting are lacking. Here I am, Lord.
If I am to be made more like Jesus, then surely I will find myself afflicted.
‘Lord, you are the God who saves me; day and night I cry out to you. May my prayer come before you; turn your ear to my cry.’
One thing I love about this psalm is that the psalmist does not doubt the Lord’s ability to save. He knows exactly how powerful God is. He doesn’t fall away from daily conversation with the Father. Deliverance does not come right away, yet still here he is. Praying. Asking. Wondering.
There is no resolution to this psalm that spins the reader back to hope. The last line reads, ‘darkness is my closest friend.’
In a commentary I read, it says that this last line can be read quite literally. Not with the shadow of self-pity that hangs over those words in my first read, but with a deep literal sense of companionship with darkness. While I’m not sure what the psalmist thought as he penned those last words..I find some comfort in the realness of his melancholic tone.
I wonder if his honest cry and somber resolve makes us uncomfortable because it resonates so closely with the condition of our own lowest moments. And at the same time, I wonder if his words could have been whispered in truthful surrender before the cross by Christ Himself — He who humbled Himself completely in obedience to a darkness no wishful thinking could dispel.
I am a generally optimistic person, and I love to pray that I can find hope in each day. But on days where big questions and overwhelming unknowns flood my mind, my response to turn to God like the psalmist will keep me afloat. Resolution may not come knocking on my door, but the Lord in His unexplainable way will.
I’m learning to walk these unpaved roads without fear.
With each decision measured in my ‘yes’ to God rather than to others.
Hope is also acquainting ourselves with uncertain places and having certainty in the One who, at any moment yet with every ounce of intentionality, has the power to change everything.
