Abandoned
I have a friend who is dying of cancer. During his medical leave, he learned in the hospital that he had been laid off. He has 3 small children. His wife who was on family medical leave to care for her husband, was also just laid off, and it is her medical coverage on which they depend.
I think my friend could easily feel the way this Psalmist felt. I think each of us is aware that we too are at the brink of such despair as well, for any moment we can become sick, alone, and impoverished, facing death. The questions then are: "Who is God?" and "Where is He now?"
At this point, Christians can give trite standard answers. These statements may be true,but they are devoid of the anguish and struggle that is part of the human condition. The glory of the Psalms, and especially this one, is that it freely expresses the reality of pain, aloneness, abandonment, oppression, and despair that occurs in a broken, evil world.
All of the Psalms however also express the psalmist's continued engagement with God. This Psalm opens with the statement that the writer is on his knees throughout the night in prayer. His lament is stated in prayer, as an anguished poem to God in which he states just how he feels. Yet he does not abandon the God he "feels" has abandoned him. He "feels" lost in darkness, but in the darkness he cries out to a God he "knows" is there, however he may feel.
Created almost 2 years ago
