Complaint, Promise, and Comfort

by Rob Lepley, Board of Deacons

Psalm 102

I had read Psalm 102 and decided to do what I usually do when I’m trying to have a better understanding of what I’m reading: I used my good friend Google to look up some commentaries on this Psalm. It usually helps to provide some insight that I may have missed, and once again I wasn’t disappointed. (“What a friend we have in Google?”...)

The first exegesis that I read on the Christ Notes site was from John Wesley. It provided a line-for-line review about what the Psalmist was trying to tell us here, offering a deeper view of what the penitent was trying to get across to us about suffering and repentance, and I found it a very useful general reading.

The second commentary was from Matthew Henry , and he opened up and clarified the Psalm for me by breaking it into three clearly focused sections:

The first portion dealt with a plainly sorrowful complaint to God. I would choose to term this the “woe-is-me, God” section. Certainly, we have all had times in our life when things look bleak and life has been very painful for us, and we half wonder why God has let such bad things happen to us. But these are also the times when we come to God with the “full court press” of prayer, Bible study, and worship. I’ve had a couple patches in my life where I thought things couldn’t get much worse – as have we all. One of the times I gave my burden completely to God, and the other time I did not, and tried to carry it by myself. The time I gave it to God was a much better experience; it was still painful, but I came through it with spiritual growth and deeper understanding of God and His will and direction in my life.

The second section that Henry cites is encouragement we can take from God’s promises to us. I like to think of this as the “God’s got my back” part. I think when you are going through a bad spell in your life, and you throw yourself into God’s Word, you see so many instances where God has helped others and where he has promised to be with us and help us through those hard times. When we choose to give God our lives, he doesn’t promise an easy life — in fact, he tells us we will have a hard life. But he promises to love us and help us through our life, even the hardest parts. This doesn’t make the bad situation go away, but it can give us peace in knowing God has our back. I know in my daily walk that this has helped me to overcome many difficulties – large and small — that I was going through.

Matthew Henry’s third concentration is on the Unchangeableness of God, the point that God is constant, and it’s us who are always changing, often fickle. When you think about this, it really helps to put your personal issues in perspective. It’s painful for us, but in the grand scheme of things, with God in our hearts, we have to ask, What’s the impact to our everlasting life? God was here way before we were born, and he will be here way after we die. His love and desire to comfort us and be in community with us never changes. It’s we humans who change from issue to issue and forget about Him when life is going good, and then run to him when life deals us a bad hand. Yet in spite of how we react or treat Him, He’s always there to love and forgive us.

Knowing about that type of love helps us to come out of those dark times in our lives. And, really, in the Lenten season, that is practically all we need to know.