When God Feels Far Away
Today's reading · Morning Prayer, June 10, Psalm 77
I cry aloud to God, cry aloud to God that he may hear me. In the day of my distress I sought the Lord. † My hands were raised at night without ceasing; my soul refused to be consoled. I remembered my God and I groaned. I pondered and my spirit fainted. You withheld sleep from my eyes. I was troubled, I could not speak. I thought of the days of long ago and remembered the years long past. At night I mused within my heart. I pondered and my spirit questioned. “Will the Lord reject us for ever? Will he show us his favor no more? Has his love vanished for ever? Has his promise come to an end? Does God forget his mercy or in anger withhold his compassion?” I said: “This is what causes my grief; that the way of the Most High has changed.” I remember the deeds of the Lord, I remember your wonders of old, I muse on all your works and ponder your mighty deeds. Your ways, O God, are holy. What god is as great as our God? You are the God who works wonders. You showed your power among the peoples. Your strong arm redeemed your people, the sons of Jacob and Joseph. The waters saw you, O God, the waters saw you and trembled; the depths were moved with terror. The clouds poured down rain, the skies sent forth their voice; your arrows flashed to and fro. Your thunder rolled round the sky, your flashes lighted up the world. The earth was moved and trembled when your way led through the sea, your path through the mighty waters and no one saw your footprints. You guided your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron. Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit: as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever. Amen.
There's something honest about Psalm 77 that most of us don't let ourselves say out loud. The psalmist isn't quietly trusting. He's groaning. He can't sleep. His soul refuses to be consoled. And he's asking, straight up, whether God has forgotten him.
That's not a crisis of faith. That's what faith actually looks like sometimes.
The questions in the middle of this psalm are the ones we whisper in the dark: Has his love vanished? Has his promise come to an end? We feel guilty for thinking them, like they mark us as somehow less. But here they are, right in the middle of the Church's morning prayer. The liturgy doesn't skip over them. Pope John Paul II noted that these bitter questions sit at the heart of Psalm 77 as it's prayed in Lauds, and the Church prays them anyway.
What shifts the psalm isn't an answer to those questions. The psalmist doesn't get an explanation. What he gets is memory. He starts recalling what God has already done: the wonders, the mighty deeds, the sea splitting open, the people guided like a flock. He rehearses the history of a God who shows up.
That's the move. When you can't feel God's presence right now, you go back to where you've seen it before. Your own story. The Church's long memory. You remind yourself that the footprints were real, even when they led through the sea and no one could see them.
The distress doesn't vanish by the end of the psalm. But the psalmist's grip on God is different. He's holding on to evidence instead of emotion, and sometimes that's the steadier hold.
Today's intention
Today, when doubt creeps in, I'll recall one moment where God came through, and let that memory be enough to keep going.