How to Deal with Dark Times

Turn to God

All of us are going to experience darkness in our lives. There’s no avoiding it and there’s no guarantee that because we’re in a saving relationship with God through Christ that we’re going to be exempt from it—we’re not.

But in the midst of this, Psalm 88 comes in and speaks to us in our darkest times, whether the result of disappointment, loss, betrayal, or any number of things. We're all going to experience what the writer of Psalm 88 experienced: the sense of a loss of inner strength, even to the point of despair. Psalm 88 is in our Bibles to let us know that, when we experience that sort of thing, we’re not alone; it’s not an uncommon human experience.

But far more important than letting us know we’re not alone, Psalm 88 tells us what to do in that experience. It embodies for us the right pattern of how to act in the darkness. Three times in the chapter, the psalmist cries out to God, and that structures the psalm. Psalm 88 is actually a turning to God in the darkness. It’s telling God about the darkness. It’s trusting in God despite the darkness.

Psalm 88 ends up reminding us we’re not alone in hard times and helps us to know what to do—turn to God.