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\u201cWill the Lord reject forever? Will he never show his favor again? Has his unfailing love vanished forever? Has his promise failed for all time? Has God forgotten to be merciful? Has he in anger withheld his compassion?\u201d Then I thought, \u201cTo this I will appeal: the years when the Most High stretched out his right hand. I will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago. \u2026 Your path led through the sea, your way through the mighty waters, though your footprints were not seen. (Psalm 77:7-11, 19)

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This psalm gives one of the hardest set of questions found in the land of lament.\xa0 It is a moment when the rug has utterly been pulled out from under the psalmist and where no trace of God can be found.

I think of Kevin.\xa0 Of Erin.\xa0 Of Kelly.\xa0 Of Michael.\xa0 Of Paul.\xa0 Of Rianti.\xa0 These young parents stolen away from their families cruelly by disease and circumstance.\xa0 And of course, there are others too.\xa0 Our church and wider community have known so much death and pain in these last few years.\xa0

Psalm 77 gives voice to exactly the sort of questions we have asked and demanded answers to from God over these past years.\xa0 Perhaps they are questions we\u2019re still asking for these or any number of other reasons.\xa0 We each have pain and heartache particular to our own lives.

The beauty of our faith, is that we stand with a community that includes the psalmists, and which not only permits us to shout out our raw, un-sanctimonious questions, fears, and emotions, but actually encourages and teaches to do it through psalms like this!\xa0

We often think it\u2019s better to not say the hard things we feel to God\u2014that it\u2019s better not to question his \u201cplan.\u201d\xa0 But that is a false reverence\u2014our relationship with God demands honesty above all, even when it\u2019s raw and painful.\xa0 The alternative is to lie.\xa0 Or to avoid God altogether.\xa0 And neither of those options are good for our soul or our faith.\xa0 It\u2019s best to just get the truth out then.\xa0 And, God is big enough to handle the hard stuff.\xa0

It's only through that sort of raw honesty before God that we are brought back and more deeply into relationship with God.\xa0 And it\u2019s in that place that slowly we begin to remember who he is; how he cares for us; and how the silence that we see and feel from his end may not be the whole story.

The psalmist scours their memory\u2014searching for any traces of God\u2014for any memories to hold on to, experiences of worship, familiar songs or stories of the faith.\xa0 Slowly the pieces fall back together.\xa0

God was the one that made a way through the sea for the Israelites\u2026 but no one actually saw God there either.\xa0 His footprints were not seen.\xa0 But that doesn\u2019t mean he wasn\u2019t with his people: saving them, making a way for them even still.\xa0 And maybe, the psalmist begins to reckon, just maybe that\u2019s true in my life right now too.\xa0 Just maybe God is still present, with me, even here, even though I can\u2019t see him either.

Dear friends, be honest with God.\xa0 Go to him often and always with whatever is on your heart.\xa0 It is from that place of honesty that we are best able to remember and believe\u2014not just in the work of God in the past\u2014but that this God might also be that same God still in our lives and sorrows today.

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