I Will Yet Praise The Lord!

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning?

O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer,

and by night, but I find no rest.

(Psalm 22:1-2 ESV)

Does this sound familiar?  I know that most of us have read these verses many times and probably have heard sermons preached on this psalm.  If fact, it is so familiar that most of us cannot read Psalm 22 without thinking of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.  This psalm captures many of the elements of Christ’s sufferings at the hands of His tormentors, elements to which Matthew refers in his account of the Crucifixion (see Matthew 27).

Yet Christ’s physical sufferings upon the Cross, as horrible as they were, paled in comparison to His spiritual and emotional suffering when Christ became sin for us and God the Father poured out His just wrath upon the sin-bearer (e.g., see 2 Corinthians 5:21).  This is why Jesus cried out to God in the words of David:

And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46 ESV) (see also Mark 15:34)

We find this truth, then, throughout God’s Word—that men at various times and locations and situations wrote under the direction (inspiration) of the Holy Spirit to address current concerns and needs.  At the same time, however, God implanted within these words seeds, if you will, of future events and realities.  This does not mean that we have license to attribute meanings to passages of Scripture as the mood strikes us.  Rather, we find revelations in the New Testament concerning these Old Testament types and shadows.  So, for example, we read in Colossians:

Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. (Colossians 2:16-17 ESV)

Likewise, we can read in Psalm 22 the crucifixion of Christ because the accounts given by Matthew and Mark under the direction of the Holy Spirit, interpret the shadow found in Psalm 22 and apply it to the substance: Christ.

Having said all that, when David wrote this psalm, he wrote in the midst of deep, personal suffering.  He was desperately seeking God, seeking relief, seeking a way out of the pain of his current situation.

Does this sound familiar?  We can become so focused on types and shadows in the Old Testament that we overlook the original intent and plain meaning of a passage.  And when we miss the plain meaning of a passage, we also miss an opportunity to draw comfort and insight and encouragement from the real-life experiences of God’s servants who have gone before us.

Psalm 22 was composed by David when he was suffering extreme emotional distress.  He was being mocked and cruelly treated by friends and foes alike.  To make matters worse, it seemed as though God, too, had turned a deaf ear to David’s cries.  Sound familiar?  Have you been there?  Are you there now?

Our faith is tested when we are confronted with reversals and disappointments in life, when it seems we have no way out of our circumstances.  And if this weren’t bad enough, we have an audience—people who are watching us in our misery to see what we will do and how we will act! David describes this very situation in verses 6-8,

But I am a worm and not a man,

scorned by mankind and despised by the people.

All who see me mock me;

they make mouths at me; they wag their heads;

“He trusts in the LORD; let him deliver him;

let him rescue him, for he delights in him!”

The test of true discipleship confronts us when we come to a crossroads in our faith and have to decide, Where will I turn?  To whom will I entrust my life?  Even David’s fellow Israelites were mocking him, mocking his trust in God.  Does this sound familiar?

What do you do when you cry out to God and get no answer?  Where do you turn when you find no rest day or night?  When you are in constant turmoil?  What did David do?  What have fellow believers done through the ages?

There are times in life when there is nothing more to be done…but to entrust our lives to the care of the One who works “all things together for good” for the ones who love Him and are “called according to his purpose” (see Romans 8:28).  To entrust means to deliver something into the care of someone else, with confidence that it will be protected.  When we entrust our lives to God’s care, the act of entrusting assumes the confidence that He will protect our lives.  Paul was able to face death because he had already entrusted his life to God.

That is why I am suffering as I am. Yet this is no cause for shame, because I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until that day. (2 Timothy 1:12 NIV)

Hudson Taylor (founder of China Inland Mission) was a 73-year-old man recuperating from ill-health in Switzerland in 1900.  During his convalescence, he began receiving  terrible news from China. “And there it was the blow fell, and telegram after telegram came telling of riots, massacres, and the hunting down of refugees in station after station of the Mission—until the heart that so long had upheld these beloved fellow-workers before the Lord could endure no more and almost ceased to beat….As it was, he lived through it, holding on to God” (Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret, p. 162).

His situation in many ways mirrored that which David describes in Psalm 22.  In the midst of his suffering, Hudson Taylor was able to write the following:

“I cannot read,” he said when things were at their worst; “I cannot pray, I can scarcely even think—but I can trust.” (my emphasis)

Does this sound familiar?  Have you ever been in such a state that the only thing you can do is trust?  There are times when God is the author of our affliction, which means that if we are to trust, we must kiss the hand that hurts us!  I can remember a conversation I had one evening with my son.  We were discussing his daughter’s cancer treatment following brain surgery.  Two-year-old Erin was about to start seven months of chemotherapy and my son said, in essence, “It’s hard because the very thing that is going to help her in the long run will hurt her now.”  This is the Father’s love being expressed in practical terms by a father for his child.  Love is not always easy and love doesn’t always feel good.  Sometimes all we can do is…trust.

But is there something practical to do when you are in this kind of situation that David describes in Psalm 22?  Yes, I am glad I asked that question!  We can learn to do what David did as a spiritual discipline:

With my voice I cry out to the LORD;

with my voice I plead for mercy to the LORD.

I pour out my complaint before him;

I tell my trouble before him.

When my spirit faints within me,

you know my way! (Psalm 142:1-3a)

A few points here about using Scripture generally and the Psalms in particular as prayers or prayer guides (these are practical things we each can learn to do).

• Turn to God in times of trouble. Don’t turn away from Him.  I recently watched a video about a summer camp for kids who have survived hurricanes.  The man being interviewed said that they stress this point to the kids: God did not hurt you!  (This is not the same thing I refer to above: the kind of hurting this man refers to is an irreparable kind of damage: a destructive force.) When we are in pain or in emotional distress the temptation to blame God must be rejected.

• Do not be silent! Be vocal when you plead for mercy to God.  You are voicing your trust in God when you plead for mercy and you are taking a stand against the temptation to despair. The New American Standard Bible says, I cry aloud with my voice to the LORD; I  make supplication with my voice to the LORD. In his commentary on this psalm, Derek Kidner points out that to make supplication is to appeal to the kindness of God. (my emphasis)

• Be honest with God. He already knows what you are going to tell him, but the discipline of telling develops and reinforces the lifelong habit of turning to God in times of trouble. 

• Be reverent in your honesty! Quoting Derek Kidner, “…my complaint is not as petulant a word as in English, but might be rendered ‘my troubled thoughts’; and we should not miss the note of frankness in the words pour out and tell, or the sense of access in the reiteration of before him (my emphasis). (Derek Kidner, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries, Psalms 73-150, IVP Academic, 1975/2008, p. 510). 

• Trust God to do you good! When you are tempted to despair of any solution to your problems, when you can see no way out of your situation, when you are too weak to go on, God knows your way.  He knows what lies before you on the path and He will guide your steps, He will preserve your life.  As John Newton wrote many years ago in his hymn, “Amazing Grace,”  

‘Tis Grace that brought me safe thus far and Grace will lead me home.

 

Soli Deo Gloria!