My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?(Matthew 27:46 – ESV)
Because Christ suffered the penalty of sin for us, we can be assured that we will never be forsaken (Hebrews 13:5). God has not forsaken you no matter how far down in the pit you have sunk. His arm is not so short it can’t save; He can bring you out of the miry clay and stand you on the Solid Rock. He can do for you as He did for the imprisoned prophet Jeremiah and bring someone to pad the ropes as He pulls you up from despair (Jeremiah 38:6-14).
We may know this truth in our heads, but we need to have it in our hearts. We may have the conception, but we need to make the connection. The bridge from conception to connection is compassion. This is the way for His reality to become our reality. Jesus really suffered and He knows that we suffer, and we can call to Him in faith. Our cry to Him is not in vain; it is a very certain call.
For those of you have already called to God to save you, but you are living in a daily despair, let me make this connection even more real to you today. In this life we will have tears on our face and tears in our armor. It is no disgrace to cry out to God when bearing the cross and feeling the pain. God knows we live in an imperfect world. He understands our difficulties. He realizes that we will have complaints, but we have a right way and a wrong way to complain. We need to be honest with ourselves that we may be honest before God, and we need to learn to bring our case before Him in the right way. We should make our complaints with honesty, trust, and hope.
It is good to feel emotion. Sometimes it is good to feel bad; look at the Psalms, depressed feelings are often a legitimate part of our relationship with God, as strange as that may sound. We often think of Psalms as a book of praise (which it certainly is), but laments and grievances to the Lord make up more than 60 of the 150 psalms. God can interact with us through the context of our depression. He has wise and loving motives although we may not see them.
Christians can and do get depressed, to varying degrees, and for varying durations. This is not always about a lack of faith or a direct result of personal sin or some symptom of a problem with the spiritual life. Depression is not a punishment from God; it may be instructive to you and certainly for others. The truth is that it is in some sense compatible with Christianity.
We seem to sell the Christian life in America today with too much triumphalism and denial of feelings, but look at the Psalms, look at our text today and Psalm 22, and see that we as Christians need to embrace and realize a more fully orbed biblical dealing with feelings. This is not to excuse and embrace wrong thinking, but to deal with depression and emotion in the way we see demonstrated as correct in scripture. Not all of this in scripture is correct; we see both the right and the wrong way. The Jews in the wilderness complained in the wrong way (cf. Psalm 78:41) but also in the Psalms we see that you can complain to Him in a way that indicates you are trusting Him, instead of grumbling in a way that amounts to an unbelieving accusation. Take a close look a Psalms 42-43 to get a feel for what I am talking about. Remember, Jesus cried out to God, not against God.
Christ was forsaken that we might never be. His wasn’t an uncertain cry but a very certain call. Jesus cried this out so that we will never have to. He cried this out to show that even in the darkest moments we could have utter assurance of our final victory in God. Nothing can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:39). We can have real pain and suffering, and real tears as we cry out in seeming despair, but we can also know God in the midst of it all, and through it all, and through to the other side of despair to declare His victory.
We are not forsaken. Let us adore the One who endured for us. Amen.
4 comments:
Good words. Comforting words. It is a rough season for me at this time, and yet praying and reading and pondering upon God's truth gives strength to the heart.
I try to pray every morning that our Father in heaven would "give the Holy Spirit" to me, as our Lord said He would. So that I can live for Him, for without His Spirit filling me, I am bound for big time discouragement. But with His Spirit, when the trials hit, I'm able to meet them, and even overcome them, as I trust in Christ, and His Spirit.
Truth, Don, and the infilling of the Spirit is indeed a constant need for us as believers...it is a rough season for me in several ways as well, I will be praying for you, brother, and I would appreciate your prayers...may God be glorified in all we do...
Amen. He is worthy. I should pray more for pastors. I'll be praying for you.
Yes, I agree that because of what Christ did in facing the ultimate trial, we of course don't have to face that, and by faith in Christ we won't!
But good words here. Just the other day I was depressed at work, really down. But by the end of the day I had a sense of the Lord's presence and love. It's those times when I'm the most down it seems (not as often anymore, but it does happen) when God makes himself known to me soon afterwards, as I seek him, and endeavor to keep looking in faith to him.
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