Why have you forsaken me? Ever wonder that? In my humanness – yes, I have felt alone, set adrift without anyone to help me row.
When I was a kid, it was my sisters and brother whom I thought regularly abandoned me. I just wasn’t into the same fun things. Or I just wasn’t fun enough to be included as I was the one who would probably tell Mom what they were up to! Not my best moments, to be sure.
In my young adult years, it was friends who picked up sticks and went to far-flung regions … for work and careers, for college, for adventure. How could someone be a part of your day nearly everyday and then move away and never call or write or even respond to your letter? Just to be clear, I’m speaking of the days before cell phones and texting or even emails. You had to employ paper, a pen, an envelope, and a stamp. Or sit in one place with a corded phone to chat long-distance which you paid for by the moment. It was a big ask, right?
Why have you forsaken me? Sometimes it is such a short journey from there’s a problem, a big problem to I’m all alone. Perhaps especially as the older we get the more we know about the big scary world. Yet there is also knowing that nothing is bigger than God.
While we are reading the Psalms we are regularly reading psalms of lament. Lament means to groan, to mourn … to complain. Complain to God.
In most lament psalms, the complaint is declared out of anguish and despair. But the author then rallies to rehearse what he knows to be true … about his current situation, but more so about what he knows to be true about God.
Israel’s King David does just that in Psalm 22. After the harrowing words in verse 1: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning? … David recalls what he knows about the Lord: Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel. In you our fathers trusted; they trusted, and you delivered them. To you they cried and were rescued; in you they trusted and were not put to shame. Psalm 22.3
This is an excellent model for me, and dare I suggest for you also? A model of stating truth, not my half-baked maybe-this-will-happen thoughts, but stating truths … I’m in a dark place. I wish I weren’t here. I wish I weren’t here alone. Lord, help me not feel alone right now. Help me feel protected, rescued, equipped, secure. I remember when You showed Yourself faithful so many times before and I want to trust You will do that again. Send a friend, send a glimmer of hope. Help me remember what I know about You!
I would suggest that few men have had more reason than David to trust that the Lord has not abandoned him. Though his enemies were mighty and close, the Lord has been with him, met his needs, protected and guarded him. God has promised David his family will continue to reign over God’s people and that a future forever King, the Christ, would come through his family line.
We read of those promises in the Old Testament book of 2 Samuel which is the story of David’s reign first as king of Judah (one portion of Israel) and then of all of Israel. In chapter 7 of 2 Samuel, the Lord God has this message for King David …
Now, therefore, thus you shall say to my servant David, “Thus says the LORD of hosts, I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep, that you may be prince over my people Israel. I have been with you wherever you went and have cut off all your enemies from before you. And I will make for you a great name, like the name of the great ones of the earth. And I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them, so that they may dwell in their own place and be disturbed no more. And violent men shall afflict them no more, as formerly, from the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel. And I will give you rest from all your enemies. Moveover, the LORD declares to you that the LORD will make you a house. When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom forever. I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men, but my steadfast love will not depart from him … And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever.” 2 Samuel 7.8-16 (emphasis added by me)
So, my friend, what’s your story? What’s the piece of your history to be remembered and rehearsed – where the outcome could only be of the Lord’s doing? Think on that some today and thank the Lord for His steadfast love, protection, rescue, and presence. Rehearse it now when you are in a good space so that you can recall it when the challenging day comes. Then ask the Lord for the opportunity to share that hope with someone else.
Forsaken? No not ever! This is the hope and assurance for every believing heart no matter the tough stuff you find yourself in the midst of. Seek the Lord’s presence, His strength, His rescue.
With hope and delight and fear of the Lord because He is near and He is so so good! Colleen