In the Lord I Take Refuge: 31 Days in the PsalmsSample

The pain of feeling forsaken is not a rarity among the people of God. As life unfolds before us as we walk with God, we will often battle feelings of wondering where God is. “If God were really with me,” we may ask, “would this be happening?” Where is his fatherly care in this loss, in this sickness, in this depression, in this pain?

These feelings and thoughts do not take God by surprise. He has given us many texts in Scripture to care for us in these times of darkness. Psalm 22 is one of these. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (v. 1), we cry out. Perhaps the pain is too raw even to tell another person about it. We are suffering alone, the pain of solitude amplifying the agony.

Notice that David assumes God has forsaken him. He does not ask God if he has forsaken him. He asks why, assuming God already has. Yet in light of the promises made to David in Scripture (see, for example, 2 Sam. 7:4–17), David ought to have known that God would never have finally forsaken him.

We can hardly blame David, though, since we often harbor the same suspicion that God has left us—that we are alone. Yet we have even more reason to be free of such thoughts, to know that God has not left us. For we know there was only one member of God’s people who was ever truly forsaken by God. For that reason, as he was hanging on a Roman cross, he spoke David’s words: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34). God had indeed forsaken him. And why? So that we never are forsaken, despite our deserving to be.