Some times we need to be carried

 Ps 88

3" For my soul is full of trouble and my life draws near the grave. 4 I am counted among those who go down to the pit; I am like a man without strength. "

Here the Psalmist is complaining about the kind of sorrows that flood our souls in which we experience constant anxiety. So the question is how can the Psalmist speak of God in a positive way when he is experiencing so much turmoil? Even tho God is never angry with us yet the Psalmist is describing God as treating him like an enemy.  5" I am set apart with the dead, like the slain who lie in the grave, whom you remember no more, who are cut off from your care. 7 Your wrath lies heavily upon me; you have overwhelmed me with all your waves. "Selah" I think sometimes we try to forget the negative feelings we are experiencing by making an effort to oppose them with focusing on God as a good God. He speaks of this anxiety as a weight that he is caring around. "Your wrath lies heavily upon me ...im overwhelmed by you waves". "My soul is full of trouble" is the way to express troubles that overwhelm us like being weighted down so that we feel weak. When we go to do our daily routine we feel like we need extra rest because we are carrying around these anxieties in which they are like weights that affect our physical strength. The Psalmist is comparing the weight of these anxieties to people who have lost connection with the world through death. He says that in this experience he is "cut off from Gods care". "Cut off" is like being placed outside the city so that we are all alone. The city in the Psalms is not necessarily a physical place but it represents our connection to a culture in which we experience Gods kingdom of love and joy. When the city is upside down there are cries of distress in the streets, people disrespecting other peoples property, and the attack on the powerless. So we see that our connection to the creation and to people are how we experience eternal life. We are sort of like dead men walking.

We have a description here of a saint who is being transparent before God who is left in this feeling of loneliness and disconnection.   18 "You have taken my companions and loved ones from me; the darkness is my closest friend." He reasons that there is only one thing he feels connected to and that is darkness. What happens when we do not feel connected in relationships? We are confused because we cannot find a way out of this darkness so that we can depend upon Gods promises. When we experience this disconnection even our closest relationships are affected. 8 You have taken from me my closest friends and have made me repulsive to them. I am confined and cannot escape;9 my eyes are dim with grief. 

You see the Psalmist is not trying to overcome this situation by attempting to cover his feelings with Gods promises. Instead he focuses on the pain and he leaves it with some questions. 9 my eyes are dim with grief. I call to you, O LORD, every day; I spread out my hands to you.10 Do you show your wonders to the dead? Do those who are dead rise up and praise you? "Selah"11 Is your love declared in the grave, your faithfulness in Destruction ?12 Are your wonders known in the place of darkness, or your righteous deeds in the land of oblivion?This question" Do those who are dead rise up and praise you?" This is a description of very mature saint who has enjoyed a life of meditation so that hes had high experiences with many victories. He is speaking as if he was two men..completely divided. These high experiences are in the past in which he has lost connection with those pleasures. Like he has died and has moved on. But in the Psalms eternal life is timeless. All of the past meditations revisit us in the present being mixed with more pleasure. But here his complaint is that he has even lost connection to these high experiences. " My eyes are dimmed" he is really saying that his eyes have been turned inward and he cannot see the beauty of the creation or experience a connection in relationships. He has this far away look in his eyes...like he is under the burden of negative thoughts that keep him from looking outward. 

The Psalmist is in the position where he has lost all hope in Gods goodness. He is describing his inward experience as if he has been judged by God and is receiving Gods destructive pronouncement. But in the christian experience we know that if we are familiar with the struggle that we are not in this position to feel condemned. So this Psalm is teaching us that we can describe an experience as if we are the unsaved person who is experiencing Gods wrath as a way to unburden our feelings of disconnection. There is a place in the christian experience where describing the pain and rejection is part of our growth. 

God has created us like Himself. This Psalm is teaching us that when we are faced with this kind of disconnection and our inward experience is turned upside down that we can get help by being transparent and expressing our sorrows in the most honest way. We may not get relief from one prayer of transparency but God will lower Himself to our level so that over time He will recreate our future and respond with some kind of relief. Some times the only remedy is to go before God and be transparent. Sometimes we have no strength and we need to be carried.