My Dark Night of the Soul
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.
In Psalm 22 we find David's cry of anguish in the midst of his suffering. Where is his God when he needs Him? Why is there no answer to his prayer? Has God truly forsaken him?
A study of the psalm itself points beyond David to the experience of Christ. And Jesus, aware of the depths of meaning in the psalm, may have memorized the words.
Feeling forsaken by God at times of stress is an experience all of us have from time to time. While as Christians we have our bright and sunny days, we also have periods of darkness when everything seems to go wrong and everyone is against us. "Where is your God now?" our mind screams out.
Just as Jesus had His own dark night of the soul, so did David, and so do I. At such times my prayers seem to go nowhere. Answers to them appear to be nonexistent.
At such times we need to take comfort from Jesus' dark night. The fact of the case is that God may be near to us even when we have lost sight of Him. Jesus on the cross may have felt forsaken, but, apart from His feelings, He was only "apparently forsaken of God" (The Desire of Ages, p. 756). God hadn't departed from Him. And the same Father stands by us in our hour of crisis--in spite of our feelings.
Even in the depth of darkness, apparently forsaken, Jesus could address the Father as "My God," His personal Father. Even when Jesus could not see or feel the presence of God, He still clung to Him. Here is faith and trust in the midst of what seemed overwhelming gloom. To Jesus He was "my God" in spite of His feelings and of outward appearances. Here was the climax of Jesus' faith that "my God" would not let Him down.
In the end that faith in the unseen presence of the Father would allow Him to exit the cross with words of triumph as He shouted "It is finished" and committed His spirit to His Father. "My God" had been there all along even though Jesus did not feel His presence.
His experience has something important for me. Just as I have my midnights of the soul during which I feel abandoned by God, so I can keep the eyes of faith focused on "my God." Despite appearances and feelings, God has not forsaken us in times of trouble.
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.
In Psalm 22 we find David's cry of anguish in the midst of his suffering. Where is his God when he needs Him? Why is there no answer to his prayer? Has God truly forsaken him?
A study of the psalm itself points beyond David to the experience of Christ. And Jesus, aware of the depths of meaning in the psalm, may have memorized the words.
Feeling forsaken by God at times of stress is an experience all of us have from time to time. While as Christians we have our bright and sunny days, we also have periods of darkness when everything seems to go wrong and everyone is against us. "Where is your God now?" our mind screams out.
Just as Jesus had His own dark night of the soul, so did David, and so do I. At such times my prayers seem to go nowhere. Answers to them appear to be nonexistent.
At such times we need to take comfort from Jesus' dark night. The fact of the case is that God may be near to us even when we have lost sight of Him. Jesus on the cross may have felt forsaken, but, apart from His feelings, He was only "apparently forsaken of God" (The Desire of Ages, p. 756). God hadn't departed from Him. And the same Father stands by us in our hour of crisis--in spite of our feelings.
Even in the depth of darkness, apparently forsaken, Jesus could address the Father as "My God," His personal Father. Even when Jesus could not see or feel the presence of God, He still clung to Him. Here is faith and trust in the midst of what seemed overwhelming gloom. To Jesus He was "my God" in spite of His feelings and of outward appearances. Here was the climax of Jesus' faith that "my God" would not let Him down.
In the end that faith in the unseen presence of the Father would allow Him to exit the cross with words of triumph as He shouted "It is finished" and committed His spirit to His Father. "My God" had been there all along even though Jesus did not feel His presence.
His experience has something important for me. Just as I have my midnights of the soul during which I feel abandoned by God, so I can keep the eyes of faith focused on "my God." Despite appearances and feelings, God has not forsaken us in times of trouble.
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