Our sixteen-year-old son’s death threw us into the terrifying land of sorrow and doubt. Throughout our journey through the foreign land of grief, God has held us tightly in His grip. We learned that He is not afraid of our questions and even invites them. We take great comfort in the transparency of the Psalmists. They threw themselves on the mercy of God, trusting that doubts do not make us unworthy of His love. In our walk of faith, we learned that He seems to hold on to us even more tightly when we are wounded.

The Character of Doubt

The writer of Psalm 77 captures the character of doubt. The beginning of his prayer ends in soul weeping:

I cried out to God for help; I cried out to God to hear me. Psalm 77:1

He just wants to know that God is listening; he labors to sense God’s presence in this midnight darkness. And yet in his cries for help, there is a paradox. He longs for God’s touch at the same time refusing comfort:

When I was in distress, I sought the Lord; at night I stretched out untiring hands and my soul refused to be comforted. Psalm 77:2

It isn’t that he doesn’t want comfort; there is a spiritual disconnect. His soul agonizes because his faith feels almost non-existent. His weakness pulls me back into my own midnight darkness. I cried out to God and yet His Word seemed to mock me and the hymns that described His faithful love felt like salt in my wounds.

A Cluttered Mind

I remembered you, O God, and I groaned; I mused, and my spirit grew faint. Selah Psalm 77:3

Remembering God did not help immediately. There are two occasions when we might feel this sort of emptiness. First, if I am guilty and I conclude God is angry with me. Second, when I recall God’s past faithfulness and now interpret the events of my life as evidence of His anger toward me.

This man is too tired to articulate his pain:

You kept my eyes from closing; I was too troubled to speak. Psalm 77:4

His profound grief stuns him into silence. Sleeplessness gives way to a deep depression where he can no longer articulate his pain and explain his sorrow.

Longing for What Was

He yearns for a simpler day:

I thought about the former days, the years of long ago. Psalm 77:5

How I long for the days before our son’s death. Life was good. Though we struggled to pay our bills and raising children always brings its own difficulties, along with health and work issues, I always felt in control. No matter what the problem, I knew I could fix it. Marks’ death changed that mindset.

Songs in the Night

I remembered my songs in the night. My heart mused and my spirit inquired: “Will the Lord reject forever? Will He never show His favor again? Has His unfailing love vanished forever? Has His promise failed for all time? Has God forgotten to be merciful? Has He in anger withheld His compassion?” Selah Psalm 77:6-9

The writer recalls other hard times when the lights seemed to go out and how God taught him to sing at midnight. Compared to this event (whatever it was) those other times were only evening, a precursor to midnight. This sorrow did not take him to a place of God’s sweet presence but to a sense of abandonment by his heavenly Father. He is not only in an emotional crisis but is now drowning in a theological abyss. What he feels about God does not square with what he has been taught and embraced about the character and nature of God.

The Cure for Doubt

Out of desperation to feel the safety of the familiar, he decides: