A DIMMED PERSPECTIVE

Rossetti wrote, “Is the road uphill all the way? Yes to the very end!”, but where the road leads highest, the clouds are often heaviest and the prospect dim. Fellow-traveller to heaven, is the day before you foreboding? There have been many before you who have felt thus. Heman was a wise man (see 1 Kings 4. 31), but there were things that he did not know. Note his recurring “why”, Psa. 88. 14, yet his psalm is entitled “Mahalath Leannoth”, meaning “sickness for humiliation”. The attaining of heights often demands a leveling of spirit.

All but unrelieved gloom hangs over this psalm. We are not informed as to the specific burden of the psalmist, but his case is bitter. He speaks of being “nigh unto Sheol”, v. 3, indeed as if already dead, in the lowest pit, vv. 5, 6. He feels the loneliness of estrangement, v. 8, and that heaven is brass-like in unresponsiveness, v. 9.

From a description of his condition he turns to expostulation with God, vv. 10-12. The psalm ends as it begins. He cries incessantly to God, and receives no reply. He asks only that he shall be heard, v. 2. He concludes that it is God’s hand upon him in wrath, vv. 6, 7, 8, 14, 16, 18. Job-like he receives no explanation, yet he continues to cry as indicative of a faith still stirring in his soul, vv. 1, 9, 13. These three callings on the Lord are instructive. They were persistent, “day and night”, v. 1, “daily”, v. 9, “in the morning”, v. 13. It is hard when importunate prayer seems but to rebound. His prayers were consistent, for he leans always on the Jehovah-name. He appeals to the faithfulness of his God, linked with His might. Though he seems to argue with God, he cannot overlook His care. His plea also was confident that the One to whom he cried was solely the source of help, “O Jehovah the God of my salvation”, v. 1. Here is faith in the gloom holding on despite circumstances. The psalm leaves him in the darkness, distraction, silence and loneliness, vv. 15-18.

The psalm teaches us that “faith is the victory that overcometh”, even though the way is hard and the prospect dim.

May our daily motto be, even though distresses abound, “Trusting though not Tracing”.