¹O LORD, the God of my salvation, I have cried out by day and in the night before You. ²Let my prayer come before You; incline Your ear to my cry! ³For my soul has had enough troubles, and my life has drawn near to Sheol.

What value is there in reading this psalm, which poses as one of the bleakest, saddest, and most depressing Scripture passages? At first glance, there is no joy or wisdom in it, but seemingly just the self-absorbed complaint of a person caught in a downward spiral of disappointment in how life has turned out. The psalm has no final words of trust or hope in God. Certainly, the Lord doesn’t include this in sacred Scripture to taunt us. But where is the spiritual uplift? How can we read this without falling into the emotional vortex of despair ourselves? Should we fast-forward to the following Psalm 89, which is populated with words of rejoicing in the greatness of God, and skip such a downer as Psalm 88? The short answer is: not at all!

First, consider that we often can’t find the words to express ourselves during overwhelming struggles. This psalm takes us beyond the cry for help and into the realm of verbal authenticity, giving us the words and expressions for talking to God when we feel He is against us or just simply silent—when we feel alone and abandoned by friends and cannot gain a sense of the Lord’s sustaining presence. The words of this psalm are intended to be borrowed, particularly when we don’t know how to articulate our thoughts in the presence of God.

Second, this psalm will resonate with those who have experienced such darkness of the soul, the familiarity of which is hidden from those who have not been there or who expend great efforts to wear a façade of spiritual success or superiority. But there are times when all of us must admit, “That is exactly how I feel, if truth be told.”

Third, God, in His grace, presents this passage as a gift, ready and waiting, for those of us who understand that He desires “truth in the innermost being” (Ps. 51:6). Its words will rise up to the only One we can trust with the depths of our hearts. By including this psalm in inspired Scripture, the Lord endorses language for authentic expression of the soul. He can handle our disappointment in Him; He does not wring His hands in displeasure toward us. Instead, God invites the honesty of verbalizing it all to Him, not just acting as though we are handling it just fine without Him. There is something profound when we meet Him at this level.

Fourth, this psalm excels in its implicit faith. Though the words are not the usual ones of faith we would expect, the psalmist does not turn his back on God, seeking help somewhere else, something that is “not-God.” No, he brings his complaints, struggles, and disappointments to Yahweh (“Lord”), using God’s covenant name in verses 1, 9, 12, and 14. He is the God of promise, who will be there for His people for whatever their need is. Where else should or would a child of faith go for help in the darkest times of life?

Fifth, this psalm is an OT application of a NT truth:

The Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words … (Rom. 8:26)

The depth of our souls betrays our inability to speak as we should. Not only does God give us these words of Psalm 88 for us to use, but His Spirit goes deeper than those words to the core of our need, about things that cannot be put into words—and that is what the Lord hears in our cry to Him.

We will comment only on a few specifics in this psalm and leave the meditation on each phrase and verse for the reader. It begins with an introduction to his lament and a simple request that his prayer be heard (vss. 1-3). He lays it all out before God, and asks that He please listen. His troubles so beat him down that they are enough to bring an end to him; he is so weak that he feels as good as dead (vss. 3-4). His life has amounted to nothing, and he will die alone—and it is all the result of God’s anger with him (vss. 5-7). The Lord has opened the floodgates, and it is destroying him. This is how the psalmist sees it.

Yet, he recognizes that he has lost the ability to see things clearly, possibly a physical reference, but surely more. Echoing none other than the godly man David, this psalmist writes, “My eye has wasted away” (see Ps. 6:7, 31:9, where David lays similar wording before the Lord). So, we see that this psalm does not come up short as a sub-godly expression of a depressed person. His words, “Why do you hide Your face from me?” tell us that he desires the very presence of God.

We conclude that this is a profound and powerful psalm that we need to understand now so that when our souls are overwhelmed, we can appropriate these words as our own prayer to the Lord. His help for us begins when we learn how to admit and express to Him the deepest thoughts of our souls.

Lord, thank You for the gift of this psalm to help me in my deepest, darkest struggles. Where else could I go, for You have the words of life?