Psalms for Help and Trust

Bible Text: Psalms 22, 23, 74, 121
Lesson Focus: God listens when we're upset.
Big Question: Why doesn't God always help me out when I ask?
Key Words: PSALM, ANGUISH, LAMENT

Prepare
Quick Prep
• There are 150 psalms, or hymns of praise, in the collection of biblical writings known as the Psalter.
• The psalms express the entire range of human emotion, including love, hate, praise, revenge, anger, joy, and anguish.
• The psalms speak vividly to the human condition in relation to the Creator, with expressions that transcend time and culture.
• It is part of the human condition to sometimes feel anger or alienation in our relationship to God, especially during times of turmoil and pain. The psalms are tools to help us express our needs and turn to God in prayer and conversation.
• God always hears and welcomes our cries for help.

Deep Prep
If Ecclesiastes says there is a time for every matter under heaven, then Psalms bears that out in detail. The honest and poetic writings of the psalms contain the full range of human emotion: love, hate, frustration, thanksgiving, revenge, praise, fists to heaven, and cries for help.

The book of Psalms is part of a larger section of the Hebrew Bible know as the Writings, and 150 psalms are contained in the Psalter. They feature several recurring themes, including God's compassion, mercy, greatness, and eternal presence for humanity. As Lawrence Boadt writes, "Even in psalms of deep sorrow and distress, the note of confidence and trust in God's goodness always comes through" (in Reading the Old Testament [Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press, 1984, page 279].

The psalms are tools and permission to speak to God about all our joys and our pains. Whatever sentiment we feel in our most intimate thoughts likely already appears in the psalms. For instance, have you ever secretly wished harm upon your enemies? You're not alone! The author of Psalm 137 bemoaned being captive in a strange land and wished revenge of the worst kind on the captors: "O daughter Babylon, you devastator! Happy shall they be who pay you back what you have done to us! Happy shall they be who take your little ones and dash them against the rock!" (Psalm 137:8–9).

Even in our darkest moments, God surely welcomes our conversation, our pleas for help, our deepest prayers and petitions. God is present with us in all our joys and our sorrows.

For young women and men no longer children but not yet adults, life can be very confusing. Relationships can come and go, often painfully; otherwise healthy families may struggle as interactions are reshaped; and the daily struggles of school, busy schedules, and peer pressure can overwhelm. Factor in issues that many of our teens and their families face—economic instability, divorce, abuse, addictions—and the psalmist's cries for help can be easily translated into modern adolescent life.

The focus text for this lesson, Psalm 22:1, parallels the words used by Jesus on the cross when he cried out to God, "Why have you forsaken me?" What a comfort to us to know that Jesus, too, felt the burdens of humanity—including sin, suffering, and pain.

There is a place for anger, questioning, hurting, and even estrangement in our faith. No doubt God can handle our rawest emotions. In Psalm 77, for instance, the writer speaks of sleepless nights and anguished thoughts while questioning whether God's love has stopped. Has God grown angry or forgotten God's people? No, the psalmist always returns to God. For even in the midst of the hardships life inevitably brings, the psalmist recognizes that God remains the ruler of the universe.

Because the psalms avoid mentioning the circumstances surrounding their writing in historically specific ways, they are difficult to pin down to specific periods in history (Carol A. Newsom and Sharon H. Ringe, eds., The Women's Bible Commentary [Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox, 1992]). It some ways, this generalism has made the psalms translatable throughout the ages. They speak vividly to the human condition in relation to the Creator, transcending time and even culture.

Many of the psalms are individual laments by unnamed individuals (excluding the names of honor in the titles). The words of these laments convey suffering in the forms of torment, oppression, loss, illness, and sorrow. But where there is suffering, there is also a turning to God for help. God will not fail the people.

The psalms celebrate the order of life given by the Creator but recognize the crises of public and private life (Norman K. Gottwald, The Hebrew Bible).

The universal cry for justice is that the unjust will be punished, even destroyed, and the righteous will be rewarded for their faithfulness. The wicked will not prosper and enemies will be dealt with justly.

And yet we wait. Several thousand years later, we continue to see the wicked prosper on the backs of the innocent, the voiceless, and the poor. We are still waiting for God's justice to reign completely. We still look to heaven and cry for help.

God has always shown preference for the poor and oppressed. God has always lifted the lowly and suffering. The psalmist looks to God's promises of mercy and faithfulness, trusting in God through all the ages to have joy restored.

Adolescent Connection
Why doesn't God always help me out when I ask?

The Hebrew people went to God in song and prayer. Often these psalms were cries for help or songs of lament. Youth know what it is to ask for help. The cliché "There will be prayer in school as long as there are tests" is a witness to the prayers of youth. Prayers for help have been around as long as people have been around. But simply praying for help and not doing anything to support our petition may be futile. If students pray to pass a test but don't study, they can't blame God for less than a passing grade. We all pray for help out of our helplessness. God hears and answers prayers in God's own time and ways. Moreover, youth can offer to God other kinds of prayers in addition to those for help. The acronym ACTS is a simple and useful prayer guide: A—adoration, C—confession, T—thanksgiving, S—supplication. Each can be an important part of the prayer life of youth.

Youth may think that doubts and anxieties about life and God are something they alone are facing. Or, they may feel that adults have outgrown such things. These psalms should help them see that God's people have always had doubts, anxieties, and fears. The psalms should also help them see that God's people have always been free to bring the whole range of human emotion and experience to God in worship and in prayer.

Baptismal Connection
In the Rite of Affirmation of Baptism, a five-part question addresses each confirmand's intent to continue in the covenant God made with them in Holy Baptism. Here We Stand resources help students—with support from parents, leaders, and the entire congregation—prepare to answer this question as they continue in their lifelong faith journey.

Today's lesson focuses on the clause "to hear the word of God and to share in the Lord's Supper" (Lutheran Book of Worship, page 201; Evangelical Lutheran Worship, page 236).

Though the book of Psalms was, of course, written long before the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus, the psalms were an important part of worship during Jesus' day. Psalms of fear and trust were written in the hope of God's future mercy based on the remembrance of his past grace. When we read and hear the scriptures and participate in the Lord's Supper, we remember and participate in the saving grace that is already ours in Christ Jesus our Lord. These psalms can also give us words when we cannot find our own words.