Liz and I were talking the other day about the famous and encouraging passage in Lamentations 3:22–24: “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
God’s mercy may be new each morning, but what happens when we do not feel it?
The Psalms give us permission to speak honestly about this feeling, In Psalm 22:1–2, we read: “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.”
David pens the anguished cry of someone who feels cut off from God—someone who, in that moment, God is not rescuing. Yet he has two weapons to help him: the past behind him and God above him.
He looks to God above in Psalm 22:3- Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel. And He remembers God’s faithfulness in the past in Psalm 22:4–5- In you our fathers trusted; they trusted, and you delivered them. To you they cried and were rescued; in you they trusted and were not put to shame.
His suffering becomes an opportunity to draw near to the God who is enthroned on the praises of Israel. David refuses to give up hope. He looks back and remembers that God’s people trusted Him in their darkest moments, and God came through. That history, which wasn’t even in his own lifetime, matters because God’s character has not changed. The same God who rescued them is able to rescue again.
He also looks back over his own life (Psalm 22:9–11) and remembers that from the moment he was born, God has been with him and has cared for him. What he is experiencing now feels completely out of step with everything he knows of God’s faithfulness. The problem, in his mind, is not that God lacks the power or willingness to save—he is convinced God can. That is why his prayer is so striking: he does not even ask for the pain to end. Instead, he pleads for God to come near again, to no longer feel so distant (Psalm 22:19).
This is where the tension lies. He is confident that God will save, but he cannot understand the delay. The past gives him every reason to trust, yet the present darkness keeps dragging on. Hope remains, but it is a hope that waits and wrestles—asking not if God will act, but why it is taking so long?
And this length of suffering is the challenge, as we discussed, because you cannot see the light of the end of the tunnel in the middle of the situation, buty when you look back that you see God’s mercies carrying you each day. When someone is in the midst of what Karrie Hahn has coined as “chronic, comprehensive suffering,” you do not always feel like you get rest or reprieve. There doesn’t seem to be an end to the difficulites, but as you keep going—keep walking by the Spirit (Galatians 5:16)—you start to see that it would have been impossible to keep walking without God’s mercies sustaining you. The fact that you keep walking through the dark tunnel is only by the power of God.
It is also helpful to remember that “it is required of stewards that they be found faithful” (1 Corinthians 4:2). To be faithful means to keep serving God. Our family has found it helpful to keep our promises, commitments, and service even when suffering means we do not feel like it. We were recently looking back at pictures from times of suffering—like when we lost another child in a miscarriage. We still showed up at church events, outreaches, and kids’ activities, and we looked okay on the outside, but the whole time we were saying, How long, O God? This was our attempt at trusting Him and trying to be faithful. Now we can say itw as the mercy of God that took us each step.
Sometimes looking back helps you remember how God has been faithful, and sometimes looking up reminds you that Jesus quoted from Psalm 22, “Why have you forsaken me, God?” so that He could later say, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”
If you feel like God is distant, shine the light of truth—He was only distant from one child. Jesus was cut off so God’s mercy would go to you each day.
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