“This psalm teaches us that God wants us to be honest and share our hurt, but in a way that remains loyal to Him. Prayer in this painful context is defined by the sheer perseverance required to hold onto the character of God when all evidence suggests He has completely departed.” - Pastor Paul Crandell, 5/24/26

Get Sermon Notes and Discussion Guide Here

Day 1

Featured Verse: Psalm 88:1–7
- In seasons when your soul feels full of troubles and your life draws near to the grave, what does it mean for you to still address God directly and persistently with your pain rather than turning away from Him?
- How do you reconcile the tension between calling God your Savior and simultaneously feeling like He has put you in the lowest pit, in darkness, and in the depths of despair?
- Looking at your own life, how does this passage challenge or encourage you to keep praying even when your closest relationships fade, your strength fails, and hope seems almost gone?

Pause and Reflect: O Lord God, I cry out to You day and night in the midst of these overwhelming troubles; though my soul is full of sorrow, my life draws near the grave, and Your waves and wrath sweep over me, I still lift my voice to You alone. Help me to keep praying when I feel forgotten in the lowest pit and surrounded by darkness, trusting that even in this deep despair You hear me and remain my only hope. Amen.

“They are not all men of weak minds and shallow wit who are acquainted with trouble of spirit, and borne down with the sense of God’s wrath; for here is Heman, one amongst the wisest of all Israel, (and inferior to none for wisdom, except to Solomon alone), under the heaviest exercise we can imagine possible for a saint.” -David Dickson

Day 2

Featured Verse: Psalm 88:8–12
- In moments when you feel shut in with no escape, your eyes dim from constant sorrow, and every relationship has faded, what does it look like for you to keep calling on the Lord daily and spreading out your hands to Him?
- How do you hold together the tension between experiencing God’s heavy hand in your isolation and continuing to plead with Him as if your very life depends on His response?
- Looking at your own seasons of darkness and “the land of forgetfulness,” how does this passage challenge or comfort you to keep praying boldly for God’s wonders, righteousness, and lovingkindness to be known here and now?

Pause and Reflect: O Lord, You have taken away my friends and made me an abomination to them, shutting me in with grief so that my eyes grow dim from sorrow, yet I still call upon You every day and spread out my hands to You in this lonely darkness; show me Your wonders while I yet live, let Your steadfast love and faithfulness be declared in my life here and now, before the grave and the land of forgetfulness silence my praise forever. Amen.

“I am the subject of depressions of spirit so fearful that I hope none of you ever get to such extremes of wretchedness as I go to, but I always get back again by this — I know I trust Christ. I have no reliance but in him, and if he falls I shall fall with him, but if he does not, I shall not. Because he lives, I shall live also, and I spring to my legs again and fight with my depressions of spirit and my downcastings, and get the victory through it; and so may you do, and so you must, for there is no other way of escaping from it.” -Charles Spurgeon

Day 3

Featured Verse: Psalm 88:13–18
- Looking back on a lifetime of suffering that began in your youth, how do you make sense of God’s terrors and wrath that have left you in despair, yet still draw you back to Him day after day?
- When every human friend and neighbor has been taken away and darkness has become your closest companion, what does it mean for you to keep praying as if God is still listening?
- As the psalm ends with no resolution or burst of praise, how does this honest conclusion shape the way you view the value of continuing to pray through unrelieved darkness?

Pause and Reflect: O Lord, though You seem to reject my prayer and hide Your face from me, though Your terrors have overwhelmed me since my youth and my companions are taken away so that darkness is my closest friend, still I cry out to You every morning and spread out my hands before You; do not hide Yourself forever, let Your steadfast love break through this unrelenting darkness, and sustain me by Your grace so that I may keep praying even when no light appears and no answer comes. Amen.

“Nevertheless, I think it the Lord’s wise love that feeds us with hunger, and makes us fat with wants and desertions. I know not, my dear brother, if our Lord hath any other way of saving us, but by taking us down into the grave of our own corruption and nothingness, and there making us to rot and consume, and then to raise us up out of our graves. He must bring us down to nothing before He can bring us up to anything. He must empty us before He can fill us. He must kill us before He can make us alive. He must make us poor before He can make us rich. He must make us vile in our own eyes before He can make us glorious in His eyes.” -Samuel Rutherford

blog