Daily Bible Reading Plans to help you read and understand God’s Word

Scripture Reading: Psalm 77:1-20, Psalm 78:1-72, Psalm 79:1-13

I’m using my husband’s phone hot spot to write this devotional in a Google Doc as we drive two states away from my sick mother and my dad and my pregnant sister and my aunts and my grandma. I’m reading these psalms, and the tears are falling because as I grieve my mom’s future and my family living so far away, I am reminded that the ancient psalmists (Asaph in this case) grieved too.

Psalm 77 starts, “I cry aloud to God, aloud to God, and he will hear me.” And yet, I find myself not crying aloud this time but being silent. I’m sitting silent in the pain of leaving my mom as she lives through cancer, far away from me. I’m hurting, anticipating the birth of my new niece, knowing I won’t be there to help. It’s all just too painful. It’s too sad. The pain is too loud, so I don’t want to cry aloud. I don’t really want to pray or read. I just want to cry quietly.

But I kept reading, and in verse 4 the psalmist wrote, “I am troubled and cannot speak...”

Asaph gets me. And maybe you too?

Pain is loud and can lead us to shouting or silence. It can lead us to wailing or wallowing. It can cause us to give God our outside voices or the silent treatment. But we who are in Christ have this stunning access to God either way. In our pain, we can cry aloud to Him. And we’re not just crying at the inside of a car or at a wall in our bedroom, we’re crying to God who knows and sees and cares and comforts.

As the psalmist keeps going we see, like many psalms, a change, an upward shift.

He says, “I will remember the LORD’s works” (Psalm 77:11). Remembering the Lord’s works so often works. When is the last time, while in the thick of your own suffering, you made the decision to recount the works of the Lord in your own life and throughout history? It’s a beautiful practice. It helps our hearts find the relief and rescue that comes from the faithful love of God. This rhythm of remembering isn’t denial of pain, but it can help us hold onto our hope when the enemy wants us to feel hopeless.

For me, today, I think that means turning my cries of homesickness and grief into cries of remembrance of the goodness of God. My cries of pain can become cries of gratitude for my family. My cries of sadness can become cries of surrender. Yours can too. I know it's true, because Jesus is the ultimate work of God that we remember. And Jesus means that death and grief are not the end. Jesus means that rescue is coming. Jesus means that life is waiting. Jesus means that tears will end.

Written by Scarlet Hiltibidal