Psalm Chapter 77

Psalm 77: The Night That Remembered

This is the psalm for the sleepless, for those who have lain awake with a grief too large for words. Asaph tells us plainly: "I am so troubled that I cannot speak." His soul refused comfort — note that, refused it, as if comfort were a visitor turned away at the door. And then come the questions, five of them in rapid succession, each one more devastating than the last: Will the Lord cast off forever? Is his mercy clean gone? Hath God forgotten to be gracious? They are not the questions of an atheist but of a lover who fears he has been abandoned. And yet — and this is the turn on which everything hinges — Asaph does not wait for answers. Instead, he remembers. "I will remember the works of the Lord: surely I will remember thy wonders of old." The waters saw God and were afraid; the depths trembled; the thunder rolled and the earth shook; and his footsteps were not known. That final phrase is perhaps the most honest thing ever written about the life of faith. God led his people through the sea, but his footprints vanished in the waves. We are asked to follow a God whose path we cannot trace.

00:00 The Cry in the Night
01:00 The Desperate Questions
02:00 Remembering the Wonders