AP

Psalm 142:1-2 With my voice I cry out to the LORD; with my voice I plead for mercy to the LORD.  I pour out my complaint before him;  I tell my trouble before him.

The Hebrew word translated ‘complaint’ here needs to be felt and experienced in the heart rather than defined ‘clinicly’ in the head.  It occurs only 13 times in the Scriptures and, not surprisingly, five of these are on the lips of Job.  One is used by Hannah when she wasa trying to explain to Eli her disposition in the temple where the priest accused her of being intoxicated and where the ESV translates it as ‘anxiety’.

The rubric at the beginning of Psalm 142 tells us that David was in the cave hiding from the deranged King Saul who was bent on killing him!  Some of us have probably found ourselves in situations where we are crying out desperately to the Lord for his mercy in a way that might be interpreted as ‘complaining’, but is really just our trying to understand his strange Providence, because of what is happening to us or around us.  We are often struggling with “Where is God in all this?” when deep down we know that he is in it with us – that he loves us, cares, and is faithful – but those known facts don’t fit comfortably with what we are actually experiencing.  David’s emotions in the cave were all over the place.  The rubric of Psalm 57 also tells us that David was expressing how he felt in that cave, but that Psalm has a much more confident and optimistic note to it, acknowledging God as a sure and safe refuge.

I’m trying to explain something here that has to be just felt rather than understood.  Hannah couldn’t understand, Job couldn’t understand, and David couldn’t understand – but they were not complaining in the negative sense, just pleading for God’s mercy to comfort and sustain them – as they knew, or at least were struggling to know, he would.

If we’ve ever been in such a situation, in deep need of such sustaining comfort and mercy, it is just wonderful that God gives us these Psalms of David, and the words of Job and Hannah, to know that we are not alone, and he understands, even if we don’t!

At the risk of boring you with one of my old favourite maxims: “He loves, he cares, he knows; his love, though never dim, can only give the best to those who leave the choice with him.”  And, “There’s not a Friend like the lowly Jesus:  No, not one! no, not one!  None else could heal all our souls’ diseases: No, not one! no, not one!  Jesus knows all about our struggles; He will guide ’til the day is done:  There’s not a Friend like the lowly Jesus: No, not one! no, not one!” (Johnson Oatman Jr.)

– Bruce Christian