Jesus was forsaken to the cross, so we can be embraced by God. And when God embraces, he doesn’t let go. We will never be forsaken. This has always been true of God’s people. Why then does the psalmist cry out: “Why have you forsaken me?” It’s not what he is saying that is important, but what he is doing. He is complaining. He knew that God had promised not to forsake his people, but at that moment he felt forsaken. He expresses himself in a way that highlights the contradiction between his experience and God’s promise. The psalm alternates between descriptions of his experience (vss.1-2; 6-8; 12-18) and appeals to what God has revealed about himself and our relationship to him (vss. 3-5; 9-10). The psalmist is complaining about this incongruity between the two. In doing this he is exercising his faith. He isn’t lowering his expectations of God. Instead, he is insisting that God do something in the light of the incongruity (vss. 11; 19-21). Then something remarkable happens. David, through his appeals, has exercised his faith to the point where he takes hold of God so firmly that his whole perspective and mood changes. His situation hasn’t changed but he has taken hold of God in the midst of it and with this comes assurance and joy. The fact that this psalm was used by Jesus to express his anguish on the cross highlights the power of its appeals. If you feel God is far away, let your faith appeal to Christ’s sacrifice and persist in seeking until you find God.
Seek the face of God and ask him to build your faith.
Read Psalm 22
