Why, O Lord, do you stand far away?
Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?
Arise, O Lord; O God, lift up your hand;
forget not the afflicted!
O Lord, you hear the desire of the afflicted;
you will strengthen their heart; you will incline your ear
to do justice to the fatherless and the oppressed,
so that man who is of the earth may strike terror no more.
Psalm 10:1, 12, 17-18
Two things struck me in this Psalm.
The first is that we are not alone if God feels far away from us when we suffer (or witness suffering). David leads out with what is often our question in suffering: Where is God? Why does he feel so far away? Is he even there?
I have lived an incredibly privileged life and my suffering has, most of the time, come at my own hands from my own foolishness. I have been abused and hurt and wronged, and have had to work through feelings of abandonment, vulnerability, and fear. But when I sit with a couple who lost their baby and they say, Where is God in this? When I listen to a young woman describe years of sexual and emotional abuse and she lets down her guard and asks, Where was God in that? When I read about Christians being dragged from their homes in the Middle East, tortured and killed in front of each other, my heart asks, Where is God?
Nothing prompts our hearts to beg for justice like unjust suffering. Nothing leads us to doubt God character or even existence faster than pain. Nothing makes us long for his just power and loving presence like the vulnerability that comes from powerlessness and vulnerability to evil.
We know the theological answer - God is not far. He is not hiding. He has not forgotten us. He is busy and active and there will come a day when we will look back and say, You worked it all together for a greater good that I could not see or understand, but for which I now give thanks.
Which is why we must fill our vision with the cross of Christ and the empty tomb. The cross speaks to our hearts of God's nearness. He is not far from our suffering - he has entered into it, absorbed the worst of it, and feels pain. And he did it for us. The tomb speaks to us his power to reverse the results of evil and pain, to retell a tragic story as a beautiful triumph, a story of betrayal as a story of fidelity and love.
When we doubt the hand of God (because we can't see it) we need to renew our vision of the heart of God. It renews our ability to say, The Lord hears and will do justice. You can count on it.
The second thing that struck me in this Psalm is that God inspired David to write it.
Seriously, the Holy Spirit of God moved through David's suffering heart and his hand to write a Psalm that is all about how far away God feels during times of suffering. That's ridiculously ironic. And weirdly comforting. God couldn't have been much nearer to David when he wrote this Psalm, and yet David is experiencing what feels like a crisis because God doesn't seem near.
This tells me that God has a purpose, a good and sanctifying motive, for letting us feel like he is far away. He is a good father and we are his children. And even though we don't understand his motives, we can trust they are good.
Prayer:
Father, thank you that you are nearer than you often feel, that you are more present in the pain that I know. "Man who is of the earth" has limited days to "strike terror" - and I am deeply thankful for the promise of coming justice and grace. Be near those who suffer, and even as they feel far from you, renew their strength to see the beauty of your promises by faith. Let them trust your heart even when they can't discern your hand. For your glory and our good.
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