Has God Forgotten to Be Merciful?

Nothing like the silence of God in the face of distress brings the sinking feeling of despair. The Bible does not offer a prepackaged answer to this problem, but—remarkably—the divine word is a humane word, and so comes alongside to help. It offers not only God’s words to us but also words that we may bring to God—even when he does not seem to be listening. Psalm 77 gives no hint as to what may have been its immediate occasion. It simply refers to distress (v. 2). It soon becomes evident that the overriding problem is not this distress, whatever it may be, but God’s silence in the face of this distress. The immediate trouble has become simply a backdrop for a larger dilemma of faith.

Psalm 77 is a peculiar composite: it consists of lament typical of the pray…