The hard questions

The book that asks why

Psalm 73 opens Book III with a person admitting something you're not supposed to admit.

He looks around at people who are mean and dishonest, and notices that things seem to be going brilliantly for them. Meanwhile he's trying to do the right thing and it's going badly. And he says out loud: I nearly slipped. I nearly stopped believing any of this was worth it.

He doesn't get a neat answer. What changes is where he's standing — he goes into God's house, and from there the whole thing looks different.

Asaph's songs

Most of Book III says “of Asaph” at the top. Asaph was one of the musicians David put in charge of worship, and his songs have a particular flavour: he asks God things directly, sometimes almost rudely.

The rest of the book comes from the sons of Korah again, and from a man called Ethan.

None of them are strangers to God. That's the point. These are the people whose actual job was leading worship, and these are the questions they had.

The darkest psalm in the Bible

Psalm 88 is unlike anything else in the book.

Nearly every sad psalm turns a corner somewhere near the end — “but I will trust,” “but You are good.” Psalm 88 never does. It starts in the dark and it finishes in the dark. Its very last word is about darkness being the only company left.

Here's the part worth stopping on: God left it in. Somebody could have edited it, or added a happier ending, or quietly dropped it from the collection. Nobody did.

So if you ever have a day where nothing feels better by bedtime, there is already a page in the Bible that sounds exactly like that. You are not the first, and you have not been left out.

Why a sad book is a good thing

It would be easy to think the only prayers God wants are cheerful ones. Book III settles that question.

Every hard sentence in it is still pointed at God. The writers are upset, but they're upset *to* Him — not walking off, not going quiet. That's what makes a complaint a prayer.

You're allowed to bring God the parts of your life that haven't worked out. Book III is seventeen psalms of proof.

How Book III ends

Psalm 89 spends a long time on a promise God made to David, and then spends the rest of it asking where that promise has gone. It sounds unfinished, because it feels unfinished.

And then comes the doxology anyway. Right after all those questions, one line of praise, closing the book.

It isn't pretending everything is fine. It's a decision to keep saying God is good while you're still waiting to see it — which is a braver thing than saying it on a good day.