Overflow Daily...ish: Community Complaints


In this series I will be highlighting the various types of Psalms that you will encounter in the book of Psalm. This is by no means the ultimate and final arrangement of the Psalms, but it is one that I have found to be very helpful.

Why have You rejected us forever, God? Why does Your anger burn against the sheep of Your pasture? 
Psalm 74:1 

As mentioned in the previous article, and what will be developed throughout this series, the Psalms provide us not only with examples of how we may express all of the emotions of life to God but also provide us with a deeper understanding of who God is, what He has done, and what He is going to do.

In this article, I will be focusing on a genre of psalms that can be quite troublesome, Community complaints. If God is sovereign and works everything for good, is it ever right for God’s people to raise complaints to Him? Shouldn’t believers just have faith and trust that everything in the end will work out?

Well, the psalms provide us guidance in this as well. In these psalms we see the cries and pleas and complaints of God’s people being raised. They are brought up because the people look around at their situations and at the wicked and acknowledge that all is not right. These psalms reverberate truths of who God is and how He is holy. For example, in the 74th psalm we read these words

“12 Yet God my King is from of old, working salvation in the midst of the earth.
13 You divided the sea by your might; you broke the heads of the sea monsters on the waters.
14 You crushed the heads of Leviathan; you gave him as food for the creatures of the wilderness.
15 You split open springs and brooks; you dried up ever-flowing streams.
16 Yours is the day, yours also the night; you have established the heavenly lights and the sun.”

Although the whole nation of Israel is voicing their complaints to the Lord, they are also establishing their trust in the character of God and calling out for God’s justice. Even today, the church also lifts community complaints to the Lord. One of the greatest tragedies of our day is abortion. Accounting for all abortions in America from 1970 to 2017 two children are killed every single minute. That means that about the time that you finish reading this article, 4 children will have been murdered by the parents who were supposed to love and care for them. It is in matters such as this that the nation of God can lift up their complaints to Him, while at the same time trust that He is sovereign and will answer our prayers.

Grace and Peace,
Pastor Alex
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This is the third post in a series of 11 on the Psalms, if you would like to read the previous articles in the series, you may find them below:

  2. Hymns
  3. Community complaints
  4. Individual complaints
  5. Individual songs of thanksgiving
  6. Royal psalms
  7. Torah psalms
  8. Oracle psalms
  9. Blessing psalms
  10. Taunt songs
  11. Songs of trust

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