As we shall see repeatedly in the Psalms, the frustration of Psalm 4 is continual. Holy people, like Abraham’s nephew Lot, are repeatedly “distressed by the filthy lives of lawless men” (2 Peter 2:7). The writer of Psalm 8 is so vexed he believes the “godly are no more.”
But he is also distressed with the fortunes of the wicked, who “freely strut about” apparently unhindered and unpunished.
In his “Sermon on the Mount,” Jesus said: “Blessed are they that mourn, for they will be comforted.” Psalm 8 is the prayer of a mourner. As D.A. Carson writes: “He mourns for the sins and blasphemies of his nation. He mourns for the erosion of the very concept of truth. He mourns over the greed, the cynicism, the lack of integrity. He mourns that there are so few mourners.”
What’s a holy person to do who is so mired in mourning?
Take it to the Lord (at least that’s what the Psalmist did) and trust God to protect us from the likes of those who distress us.