Positioned gracefully across the Book of Psalms is a string of seventy-one pearls, lovely beads of wisdom followed by the admonition SELAH which means, “Pause, think on these things, meditate.”
Psalm 88:8-10 “You have taken from me my closest friends and have made me repulsive to them. I am confined and cannot escape; my eyes are dim with grief. I call to you, O LORD, every day; I spread out my hands to you. Do you show your wonders to the dead? Do those who are dead rise up and praise you? Selah.”
Meditation
If this isn’t one sad cry for help! Read the whole psalm if you can. The psalmist feels abandoned by everyone, from God on down through his friends. He feels he’s been “set apart with the dead, like the slain who lie in the grave” (v. 5). He says, “The darkness is my closest friend” (v. 18).
Still he cries out to God. Despite everything, he knows enough not to give up on the only one who can help him.
This is a good lesson for me, for everyone, I suspect. When we’ve been hurt, when we feel betrayed, we want to give up . . . consider ourselves dead to the world . . . have a mega pity party. Oh the drama!
It’s also a good lesson to look to God when things are darkest in the world. He is, after all, the one with the well-earned reputation for “being there.” And he is in a position to change what needs changing, whether that be us or our circumstances.
SELAH
Look up: Psalm 13:1-6; 18:1; 20:1-9; 62:5; 73:25; 118:8;
Hebrews 13:5
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