In America today, we are inundated with books that focus on our personal happiness, personal fulfillment, self-improvement, self-help, and every other self-therapy and self-healing strategy we can think of. Unfortunately, this so-called happiness is far from the reality that the psalmists portray for us in many of the psalms.

The psalms are filled with deep, dark, personal valleys of despair and suffering. The psalmists write (inspired by the Spirit) in such a way that their darkest sins, doubts, failures, weaknesses, questions, and anxieties are brought to light before the Lord. We see their anger and joy, despair and hope, and suffering and comfort. The full spectrum of human emotions and thoughts are offered to God in prayer and brought underneath the light and instruction of God’s Word.

Sinclair Ferguson, in his book Deserted by God, insightfully wades through a careful selection of these Psalms, examining the suffering saints’ spiritual journals. Ferguson observes the inspired approach each psalm takes in laying out burdens before the Lord. His readers will find great encouragement as they join Ferguson in the study of the psalmists’ themes echoed in their own hearts and minds.

Ferguson writes, “This book is for such Christians. It will not remove all of their difficulties; but my prayer is that it will be a helping hand on the way and will provide encouragement like a voice saying, ‘I know where we are going; put your next step here and you will be able to make progress, even though it seems dark all around” (page 1). He continues, “The English poet William Cowper learned through his own deep depressions that the ‘bright designs’ of God are often forged in deep and unfathomable mines of never-failing skill.’ The Psalms similarly show us how the people of God have grappled with their questions, doubts, and desertions, and how God lifted them up and brought them into new light and joy” (page 2).

I will leave you with Ferguson’s meditation on Psalm 22. Herein, he encourages the suffering saint with God’s love for sinners. Ferguson observes that for God to apply any promise or benefit to sinners, His Law demanded the great exchange: Christ suffered in the place of the sinner that the sinner might be graced with Jesus’ own blessings.  

Sinclair Ferguson asks whether or not we truly understand what is being asked of Jesus on our behalf as sinners:

• “In asking for ‘mercy’ … you are asking that God will give it to you, but withdraw it from Jesus.
• In asking to experience God’s ‘steadfast love,’ you are asking that Jesus will feel it has been removed.
• In asking to taste God’s ‘abundant mercy,’ you are asking him to refuse it to Jesus as he dies on the cross.
• In asking God to ‘blot out your transgressions,’ you are asking that they will be obliterated by the blood of Jesus.
• In asking to be washed, you are asking that the filth of your sin will overwhelm Jesus like a flood.
• In asking to know the joy of salvation, you are asking that Jesus will be a Man of Sorrows, acquainted with grief.
• In asking to be saved from blood-guiltiness, you are asking that in your place Jesus will be treated as though guilty.
• In asking that your lips will be opened in praise, you are asking that Jesus will be silenced, as a sheep before her shearers is silent.
• In asking that the sacrifice of a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart be acceptable, you are asking that Jesus’ heart and spirit will be broken.
• In asking that God will hide his face from your sins, you are asking that he will hide his face from Jesus.
• In asking that you will not be cast out of God’s presence, you are asking that Jesus will be cast out into outer darkness instead.

But dare we ask God to do this for us? To obligate himself to love us in such a manner as this? We do not need to ask him. He has already done it. In Christ, he has already done everything that is necessary for our salvation. Now all we need is Christ.”