Our life cannot avoid the experience of suffering, for by it alone do we move from a rather comfortable, if not complacent, view of the world around us to a deeper knowledge of ourself. Job himself, a perfectly righteous man, had to come to terms with the darkness within himself, concealed by a defence of laudable philanthropy, before he could be guided into a more adult understanding of the God he so reverently worshipped. And so he confessed to his three friends who had come to comfort him, "Every terror that haunted me has caught up with me; what I dreaded has overtaken me" (Job 3:25). He learnt much about the true nature of suffering and its latent blessing even during his fruitless debate with his companions; the end was a direct awareness of the immeasurable glory of the Creator, compared with which his own travail was as nothing. This is the consolation we all may know provided we persist onwards even when faith itself seems a tragic delusion. We know God primarily as a presence within us, or at least in direct contact with the core of our being. But life is here to make that intimation a vibrant reality.

Some of the most pain-racked psalms come to this conclusion through a careful working-out of the experience moment by moment. Jesus himself repeated the first line of Psalm 22, which then proceeds on its dismal way:

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from saving me,
so far from heeding my groans?
My God, by day I cry to you, but there is no answer;
in the night I cry with no respite.

The Psalmist goes on to contrast the divine assistance to his forefathers with the terrible state he now has to endure: a worm rather than a man, the source of heartless ridicule to all those around him who gloat over the impotence of his professed confidence in God to ameliorate his situation. He is surrounded by ferocious animals out to destroy him, while his strength drains away in despair. There are passages that foreshadow Christ's crucifixion:

I tell my tale of misery,
while they look on gloating.
They share out my clothes among them
and cast lots for my garments.

He prays once again for God's help, and then comes the miracle: rescue is afforded in the most desperate situation, and the Psalmist's tension can relax into a paean of thanksgiving:

I shall declare your fame to my associates,
praising you in the midst of the assembly . . .
For he has not scorned him who is downtrodden,
nor shrunk in loathing from his plight,
nor hidden his face from him,
but he has listened to his cry for help.
You inspire my praise in the great assembly;
I shall fulfil my vows in the sight of those who fear you.

The psalm ends triumphantly with the thought that coming generations will be told of God's righteous deeds, and how he has acted decisively in the cause of justice.

The use of this psalm by Jesus on the cross raises the question as to whether he was pouring out his great pain or rehearsing God's final triumph. It seems probable that Jesus did feel bereft of his Father's presence, for the drama connected with this episode in the crucifixion speaks of something more desperate than a mere quoting of a psalm that ends on a note of triumph. The parallel accounts in Matthew 27:45-49 and Mark 15:33-39 are piercing in their agony that has no pleasant denouement in sight. Good Friday was a ghastly tragedy to all who looked on; but as we say in the Nicene Creed, "On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures". This is the miracle of God's grace that redeems our much less terrible travail, not so much by restoring that which was lost as by giving something completely new that alters our perspective of reality. In his own agony, the Psalmist penetrated the mystery of universal pain that is the presage of universal resurrection.

Another psalm that has Gospel affinities is Psalm 31 which starts with a confident appeal to the Lord:

You are my rock and my stronghold;
lead and guide me for the honour of your name.
Set me free from the net that has been hidden to catch me;
for you are my refuge.
Into your hand I commit my spirit.
You have delivered me, Lord, you God of truth.

The first five verses of this psalm, of which these lines are the end, are used in the office of compline; the penultimate verse was quoted by Jesus on the cross as the last of his "seven words" (Luke 23:46), at least in the Church's tradition in relation to preaching the "seven last words" on Good Friday.

Then comes a description of his present suffering: his misery has reduced his body to a state of wasting, his enemies scorn him while his neighbours find him a burden. Even his friends shudder and then pass by on the other side of the street as quickly as possible. Here one has visions of the Parable of the Good Samaritan where the priest and Levite pass by on the other side from the man who has been assaulted and robbed. Even more pertinent is the manner in which Jesus' disciples ran away when he was betrayed and showed his powerlessness, Peter denying so much as ever knowing him on three occasions.

Like the dead I have passed out of mind;
I have become like some article thrown away.
For I hear many
whispering threats from every side,
conspiring together against me
and scheming to take my life.

But the Psalmist puts his trust in God to rescue him from the hands of his foes, a climax being reached in a passage of imprecation against the wicked. And then comes relief; God conceals the just under the protection of his presence, safe from both conspirators and mischief-makers. The Lord is blessed, and an answer is given to the first verse of Psalm 22:

In sudden alarm I said,
"I am shut out from your sight."
But you heard my plea
when I called to you for help.

Then comes the final injunction to love God, who protects the faithful but punishes the arrogant:

"Be strong and stouthearted,
all you whose hope is in the Lord."

The problem arises as to how one may be strong and stouthearted in a time of severe strain as described in this psalm. It is somewhat reminiscent of telling a neurotically fearful person to pull himself together; the advice may be sound but no indication is provided as to how he should proceed. The answer is one of pure faith; in the meantime God fills us with such quiet strength that we are able to proceed in a mood of confidence that owes little to external circumstances but much to the Spirit of God within us. If our conscience is unclouded we need fear no evil; if we know that we have sinned, we have only to confess in open confidence to God for the relationship to be restored and composure given to us. Our consolation lies, paradoxically, in our own inability to solve our difficulties, so that we need feel no guilt on this account. But when we give ourselves in trust to God, resting in the Lord's love, we are given the strength to carry on even when the darkness shows no immediate sign of lifting. We are indeed saved by faith and not by our own works lest we should boast (Eph. 2:9) and thereby assume something of the divine power. In the end we may be able to enjoy the darkness as much as the light, inasmuch as we are illuminated by the inner light of God that neither flickers nor can be extinguished.

The secret is the practice of prayer, and its attainment is the final object of human life. Jesus himself said, "the Son can do nothing by himself; he does only what he sees the Father doing: whatever the Father does, the Son does" (John 5:19). In the end, as we know, the Son had to do it all alone while the Father stood by, and by his victory over the darkness the Son is with us also when we traverse our own path of suffering. The Father does not intervene lest we should not gain the benefits of our own travail, but he has left a witness to accompany us and a promise of final achievement that will never fail.

A psalm of much greater joy comes later; in Psalm 107 the writer relates three different types of suffering and their joyful reversal by the love of God.

It is good to give thanks to the Lord,
for his love endures forever.
So let them say who were redeemed by the Lord,
redeemed by him from the power of the enemy
and gathered out of the lands,
from east and west, from north and south.

First comes a recital of the travail of the Jews returning home from Babylonian exile, some lost in the desert wastes, hungry and desperate. But their cries to God were answered, and they were led to inhabited towns until they reached their destination. Then follows a more harrowing account of those who had brought pain upon themselves because of having flouted God's purposes and defied his commands. In their desolation they called for help, and the Lord saved them from the darkness of imprisonment and the agony of despair. We indeed suffer in this way when we disregard the wisdom of God, as did Adam and Eve in their allegorical journey to self-understanding after they had repudiated the heaven in which they had been originally placed. But the divine assistance is never denied us provided we have the humility to seek it and the integrity to turn away from self-indulgence to obedience, from selfishness to service. The problem is always to keep up this declared conversion to the light and not slide back into the darkness; the entire Old Testament narrative is a development of this theme. In the New Testament the light is fully revealed, but, as we know only too well twenty centuries later, it is very hard to remain in its testing love.

Finally there is the celebrated account of God's help to those who sail the oceans:

Others there are who go to sea in ships,
plying their trade in the wide ocean.
These have seen what the Lord has done,
his marvellous actions in the deep.

The Psalmist describes the terror of the storm, the sailors being carried up to the skies and plunged down into the depths, and tossed to and fro in peril. One's mind immediately focuses on the story of Jonah and the sailors on the ship on which he tried to escape from doing this duty. Only when God's name was invoked and obedience sworn did the storm subside; the innocent sailors resumed the work and Jonah was ready to preach repentance to the Ninevites. And so, in the psalm, the seamen's cries bring them out of trouble as the storm subsides, and God guides them to the harbour that was their destination. Then they praise the Lord for his enduring love and his marvellous works.

The fulfilment of the storm episode in the story of Jonah and Psalm 107 is the presence of Jesus himself in the storm-buffeted ship of Matthew 8:23-27. With God the Son among the crew an inner power is shown that can still the waves, but, like Jonah, the Lord has first to be awakened. God may start his work from outside, but in the end the power is to be given to those who follow him.

To return to Psalm 46:10, when we can let be and learn of the divine presence, that presence infuses our own being and fills us with power beyond our simple understanding. The greatest power is courage to face the immediate present with strength and purpose.

The psalm attains its climax with a recital of God's many wonderful works so that the righteous may prosper, while tyrants, for all their worldly power, are brought into misfortune and sorrow. This theme of the Wisdom literature deserves closer inspection, for life is not always as clear-cut as this, but we can reiterate the Psalmist's enthusiasm for God's righteousness:

Let them give thanks to the Lord for his enduring love
and for the marvellous things he has done for mankind.
Let them exalt him in the assembly of the people
and praise him in the elders' council.

The beautiful Psalm 84 gives some indication of the rewards of suffering. It is a pilgrimage hymn for those on their way to Jerusalem whose end is the Temple itself.

Lord of Hosts,
how dearly loved is your dwelling-place!
I pine and faint with longing
for the courts of the Lord's temple;
my whole being cries out with joy
to the living God.

Like the birds of the air the pilgrim has found his home in the Temple, not of course as a place of residence but as a habitation of eternal rest. Here there is ceaseless praise, not merely with words that flow from the lips but with an open heart pouring out God's blessings to the world.

The sixth verse is especially important:

As they pass through the waterless valley
the Lord fills it with springs,
and the early rain covers it with pools.

So much of our life is arid and unproductive, our enforced journey a drudgery rather than any apparent pilgrimage. We look for a change of fortune as if we deserved it, as if it should be ours by right, but in fact our eyes are so concentrated on our own condition that we fail to take full account of the greater world around us. We long for a change while we are oblivious of the potential glory in our very midst and within our seeking grasp; if only we would awaken from our self-centred slumber and participate wholeheartedly in the events of the present moment.

If we see life as a pilgrimage, our sufferings become productive; the desert blossoms with new life, and every moment reveals a prodigy of God's glory. The pilgrim has his eyes fixed on his destination; his creature comforts cease to impinge on his consciousness as a primary concern, and yet, not surprisingly, they are satisfied. The law enunciated in Matthew 6:33 is fully proved, "Set your mind on God's kingdom and his justice before everything else, and all the rest will come to you as well." The person who sees life as a pilgrimage will never be disappointed; his fellow who looks for personal advantages will be miserable even if many material assets come his way. The explanation is that his eyes are so set on the barely attainable, and the jealousy that comes with it, that the splendour of the present moment passes him ludicrously by. In the words of St Paul, "In our sorrows we have always cause for joy; poor ourselves, we bring wealth to many; penniless, we own the world" (2 Cor. 6:10).

The Psalmist prays for the anointed one, probably either king or high priest depending on when the psalm was composed in relation to the Babylonian exile, and then follows the famous verse:

Better one day in your courts
than a thousand days in my home;
better to linger by the threshold of God's house
than to live in the dwellings of the wicked.

To know God with that unselfconscious intimacy is the goal of our life. In him alone is the rest which we all seek, a rest that strengthens us effortlessly for the work ahead, which we can anticipate and greet with enthusiasm. The writer is thinking of the magnificent Temple, but this is merely the outer form of the heavenly design shown to Moses on Mount Sinai, and revealed to us also in our own lives as we enter the silence of dedication to God, and by extension to our fellow creatures also. Indeed, in the splendid vision of the new Jerusalem that comes near the end of the Book of Revelation, there is no Temple, for its Temple is the sovereign Lord God and the Lamb (21:22). While we live on earth it is right that we should work towards earthly ideals, but if these are spiritually based and not merely objects of personal aggrandisement, they lead us past themselves to the life of eternity. In other words the things of this world that are treated with reverence assume the nature of sacraments, no matter how far the person may be from spiritual knowledge. The vibrant heart has its own tacit understanding, an understanding so common in the psalms, but so easily overlooked by the casual reader. And so comes the final affirmation of God's glory and his love:

The Lord God is a sun and shield;
grace and honour are his to bestow.
The Lord withholds no good thing
from those whose life is blameless.
O Lord of Hosts,
happy are they who trust in you!

It is nevertheless right to end this chapter on a more solemn note. In earthly life our suffering is seldom removed as by a miracle; instead we have to learn to bear it, hoping ultimately to grow through it. Psalm 90, a favourite of mine, sees the human condition in calm, sombre perspective.

Lord, you have been our refuge
throughout all generations.
Before the mountains were brought forth
or the earth and the world were born,
from age to age you are God.

God has complete power in his universe, being able to turn his people back to dust, for in his sight a thousand years are as the passing of one day. Rather in the manner of the very different Psalm 103, the writer laments the frailty of the human condition:

You cut them off;
they are asleep in death.
They are like grass which shoots up;
though in the morning it flourishes and shoots up,
by evening it droops and withers.

The writer sees the human condition as being perpetually under God's judgement; all our days pass under the divine wrath because of our sins. Even if we attain the customary seventy or eighty years, our lives are but toil and sorrow. The Psalmist speaks much of the divine wrath which punishes us unremittingly for our offences, but a more helpful way of assessing the situation is to relate wrath to law; one cannot infringe any moral law, including that of the state, without incurring the prescribed punishment. This "wrath" of the Creator is a measure of the love he feels for us: nothing but its best will suffice. "My son, do not spurn the Lord's correction or recoil from his reproof; for those whom the Lord loves he reproves, and he punishes the son who is dear to him" (Prov. 3:11-12).

When we come to our senses, we can see the prospect ahead of us, an insignificant period of strength followed by a void of helplessness:

So make us know how few are our days,
that our minds may learn wisdom.

This is the supreme reward of suffering, greater even than the marvellous relief and reversal of fortune so often encountered in the psalms and rather less dramatically but equally joyously in our own lives. The chastened Psalmist yearns for a demonstration of God's love and power, so that there may be days of gladness for those of the previous humiliation, not only personal but also national. But until wisdom has been acquired, all God's bounty will be wasted.

May the favour of the Lord our God be on us,
Establish for us all that we do,
establish it firmly.

So ends this darkly-tinted, but hopeful, psalm. The successful undertakings that the Psalmist requests can only be realized with some degree of permanence when the people can co-operate intelligently and resolutely with the divine assistance. Wisdom has to take the place of indulgent folly. To depend on God reversing an unpleasant situation is childishness; to offer oneself as a child in the service of God is the way of wisdom. Childlikeness includes a humility that will learn from every circumstance; it is an attitude essential for the acquisition of true wisdom.