Holding on in the Dark: Reflections from Psalm 88
I recently spent time studying Psalm 88, rightly called the saddest psalm in the Bible. Yet in its deep darkness, we find incredible truths for us to hold onto, especially during dark times.
I remember listening to an old interview with Corrie ten Boom. She was describing the horror of concentration camp and that despite the hardship they were facing her sister, Betsie, in faith declared "There is no pit so deep that God's love is not deeper still."
Psalm 88 echoes that kind of faith. Though it is a psalm of unrelieved lament, its first words are full of trust: "Lord, you are the God who saves me." The psalm reveals that the writer was a man who had suffered from his youth. His circumstances were devastating, isolating, and life-threatening. Yet he kept praying. He kept calling out. He kept directing his anguish toward the God he knew was sovereign and able to save.
This psalm gives believers something we desperately need: language for the dark. It shows us that crying out to God in pain, confusion, and even desperation is not a sign of weak faith. It is faith. As Charles Spurgeon once described Heman's cry, "I am a child crying alone in the dark. Will the heavenly Father leave his child there?" The implied answer is of course NO. God hears even when we cannot yet see His deliverance.
What struck me as I studied the psalm is that the psalmist's greatest dread was not suffering itself, but the fear of being cut off from God (v. 5). For believers in Christ, that fear has been answered once and for all. Psalm 88 asks questions that the New Testament answers with a resounding yes:
- Does God work wonders for the dead? Yes!
- Do the departed rise up to praise Him? Yes!
- Is His steadfast love declared beyond the grave? Yes!
Because Jesus entered the ultimate darkness was rejected, alone, saturated with sorrow, and finally cut off for our sake, we never will be. He has conquered sin and death (1 Corinthians 15:54–57), securing a hope the psalmist could only long for.
And so, Psalm 88 becomes a gift for suffering believers. It tells us that despair does not cancel faith, that honest lament is godly, and that our prayers, even our wordless cries (Romans 8:26), are heard by a faithful Father. Corrie ten Boom once said, "When the worst happens in the life of a child of God…the best remains, and the very best is yet to be."
In the darkness, Psalm 88 teaches us to keep praying and to cling to the God who saves, the God who remembers, and the God whose steadfast love is deeper than any pit we will ever face.
