“O God, how is it that you have brought this to pass?”
“Lord, why are we suffering in this way?”
“How long, O Lord?”
We have all experienced the painful confusion that gives rise to such questions. Sudden suffering arrives like an unexpected and unwelcome guest. As it prolongs its stay, despair begins to pull a shade over the faint glimmer of hope that this might soon be over. “Lord, don’t you see? Don’t you hear? Won’t you rescue?”
When faced with such enduring affliction, what keeps hope alive?
Tenuous Towers
Psalm 79 opens with the pleas of Asaph, a suffering saint who has witnessed the unthinkable. Jerusalem has been attacked, conquered, and left in ruins. The bodies of God’s people lie strewn about in heaps, their blood flowing like streams through the city. The temple, God’s holy temple, is defiled. God’s people, whom he rescued with a strong and mighty hand from Egypt and established in the land of Canaan, have been devoured. Furthermore, this is no fleeting trial. “How long, O Lord? Will you be angry forever?” (79:5). Will our suffering never come to an end? Have you entirely spurned and rejected us, your covenant people?
All this pierced Asaph to the heart. Yes, Israel had a long history of unfaithfulness and had been disciplined, repeatedly and severely, for their sins. But this was Jerusalem, Mount Zion, which God loved (Psalm 78:68). The smoking ruin Asaph saw was once the temple, the sanctuary built by God’s own hand (78:69). The heap of rubble that lay before him had once been the House of the Forest of Lebanon, the great throne room of the line of David, whom God had established as king (78:70–71).
All now lay in ruins.
Our own lives can feel similar. We labor long and hard at pastoring a church, faithfully preaching, discipling, and counseling as we seek to build the congregation into maturity in Christ. Then, seemingly overnight, it collapses. A faction arises and splits the church. A case of discipline divides. The sins of a leader make local headlines, and everything is in tatters. Or, as many Christians might experience around the globe, enemies come, burn the building, and kill the faithful.
Perhaps the rending is within a family: a long-standing marriage cloven by unfaithfulness, a child who renounces the faith. Or maybe it’s within the workplace: A business partner cooks the books and disappears, leaving you with bankruptcy; a sudden loss wipes out everything you’ve worked toward for a decade.
What appeared so secure in our eyes suddenly tumbles like a Jenga tower, blocks scattering across the floor, and life is left in ruins. O Lord, how long?
Bedrock Pronouns
To what hope can we cling when it appears that God’s hand is against us?
Psalm 79 ends with a remarkable verse: “But we your people, the sheep of your pasture, will give thanks to you forever; from generation to generation we will recount your praise” (79:13).
Amid agony, an underlying confidence remains, tucked into the prophetic pronouns we and your. The first line of verse 13 could be rewritten to draw out the psalmist’s confidence: “We are your people, the sheep of your pasture.” This covenant indicative requires a careful review of the whole psalm: Asaph never loses sight of the fact that the suffering he witnesses and experiences is the suffering of the people of God. This is what makes the devastation appear so incongruous. “The people of Israel are your inheritance.” “The defiled temple is yours.” “The unburied bodies are those of your servants.”
Suffering frequently fills the lives of the saints. Isaiah tells us it will happen: “When you pass through the waters . . . when you walk through fire” (Isaiah 43:2). Peter warns us not to be surprised by trials (1 Peter 4:12). Sometimes our suffering is a means of testing and refining our faith (James 1:2–4; 1 Peter 1:6–7). Other times God brings suffering upon his people to discipline them (Hebrews 12:7–8). Asaph acknowledges the latter: “Do not remember against us our former iniquities; let your compassion come speedily to meet us. . . . Deliver us, and atone for our sins” (Psalm 79:8–9). He recognizes the ruin of Jerusalem as judgment for sin, a failure by the people of God to hold fast to him. Regardless, the underlying conviction remains: The sufferers belong to God.
Still His Sheep
Picking up on the Old Testament image of Israel as God’s flock, Jesus told the Jews, “I am the good shepherd,” and the sheep to whom I give eternal life cannot be snatched “out of my hand” (John 10:11, 28). Yes, those sheep might — nay, will — be persecuted, maligned, attacked. Yes, those sheep will suffer sorrow, loss, and hardship, including some as God’s discipline. At times, persecution or suffering may be so prolonged that it will begin to feel like God has abandoned his flock. Years might be spent in prison. Losses might not be restored. Family or church divisions might not be healed. Reputations might not be regained. Jerusalem might be sacked, the temple reduced to stones, the people killed or exiled. But in his hand we remain.
If we are to face our own trials with hope, we will cling to the same confidence that undergirded Asaph’s prayer: We are still his sheep. Therefore, we learn to say with Paul that nothing “shall separate us from the love of Christ” (Romans 8:35). And we learn to pray and praise in the midst of our trials.
Sheep Who Pray
Asaph’s confidence that the suffering tribe of Judah was still the people of God led him not only to ask how long the trial would last but also to pray for justice, forgiveness, and deliverance.
He prayed for justice. “Pour out your anger on the nations that do not know you, and on the kingdoms that do not call upon your name!” (79:6). Asaph did not shy away from asking God to judge sinners. We may feel squeamish about this today. But notice why Asaph prayed like this. It was not because he wanted to secure his own rights. When the nations warred against Jerusalem, they warred against God. They devoured God’s inheritance; they defiled God’s temple. Asaph’s cry for justice was a cry for God to preserve his honor and glory. “Why should the nations say, ‘Where is their God?’” (79:10). When we pray for Jesus to return, we are praying for the same, for he will come to judge the living and the dead. “Your kingdom come.”
Asaph prayed for forgiveness. He recognized the failures of his own people. He read their sufferings as God’s discipline. And so he prayed for God to forgive, to relent, to atone for their sins. And again, he prayed this for the glory of God’s name (79:9). Some of us may not even consider whether the suffering we experience is the discipline of our kind heavenly Father. Asaph had no such qualms. He acknowledged sin. He confessed. He sought forgiveness and an end to the rod of discipline. “Forgive us our sins.”
Finally, Asaph prayed for deliverance. Echoing the prayers of God’s people in Egypt, Asaph asked God to hear the groans of his people and to preserve them (79:11). He longed to see the people of God saved from their enemies and trials. When God delivers, he reveals his sovereign power over the might of men. When God delivers, he reveals his faithfulness to the promises he has made, thus demonstrating his character as the God of steadfast love and faithfulness. When God delivers, he reveals his glory. “Deliver us from evil.”
Sheep Who Praise
Remarkably, this psalm, which began as a shocked lament over the ruin of Jerusalem, ends with the word praise. “We will give thanks to you forever; from generation to generation we will recount your praise” (79:13). Praise is a mark of mature confidence in God. It reveals a steady trust that we belong to him, that our inheritance is secure, that he is with us through the waters and in the fire, that nothing separates us from his hand. It also reveals a deep trust that he will keep his promise to one day establish a new heaven and new earth in which all the trials and sufferings will end, all the tears will be wiped away, all the injustices will be made right — a world in which his praise will endure forever and ever.
God’s people face many pains and perplexities in this life. But even as we walk through dark valleys, we are still his sheep.
