The Psalms are startling in how they aggressively nudge God into action. God is described as deaf, blind, sleepy, or lethargic. Unresponsive. The prayer is less a petition than a rousing, shaking God awake, goading the Lord to act.
With my students I've described the Psalms as marriage counseling between Israel and Yahweh, the spouses bickering back and forth. In one Psalm you hear the husband speaking. In another Psalm, the wife. In Psalm 83 the wife is speaking: "Dear husband, I thought you loved me. Do something!" Elsewhere, the husband expresses his own complaints. The Psalms are a marital squabble.
I point this out to my students to make that point that love is a rocky road, even our love with God. This relational distress needs to be normalized, rather than pathologized, so that faith can be transformed into fidelity. God's chosen people were those who wrestled with the Lord. That's what love feels like sometimes, like a wrestling match.
Or a marital spat.
