Has God Truly Abandoned Me?

How Long, O Lord? In times of spiritual darkness we must remember and trust in God.

Intro

This past week, we’ve been running a Holiday Bible Club here in Redeemer with a secret agent theme. And our ‘mission’ for the week was to discover who Jesus was, and if we need him. And for most of us here this morning, at some point in our lives we will have realised that we do, personally, need Jesus, and will have begun to follow him.

When children are little they need their parents for everything and they have to follow their parents everywhere. I’m sure many of us can remember a time when we were little when we were with our parents in a crowded area, and we weren’t really paying attention and suddenly we look up and we can’t see our parents.

Where have they gone?

And the panic starts to rise up and you wonder: Have they forgotten me? Have they abandoned me? Are they ever coming back? What do I do?

One of, if not the worst, thing that a Christian can experience in this life is to feel abandoned by God.

This is a different kind of absence of God than the unbeliever experiences. Unlike the unbeliever, the Christian has tasted that which is good. They have experienced the joy of relationship with their creator. A joy that surpasses all other things. They have known the sweetness of his grace and mercy, the relief of burdens; They have known forgiveness, true rest, and a love unlike any other.

After already experiencing all of this, to then feel deserted by this God is a pain unlike any other.

This is the position that David is writing our Psalm this morning from. As he cries out How long, O Lord? he is in the depths of depression and loneliness and this overwhelming sense of abandonment.

And maybe as you sit here this morning, you can relate to this all too much. I pray that God’s word will be an encouragement to you this morning.

For others I would urge you not to switch off. God’s word this morning is for you too. We should be prepared in season and out of season. Not only so that we may be prepared for ourselves in the future, but also so that we can be an encouragement and a help to our brothers and sisters here too.

As David cries out to God in Psalm 13, his petition in the second section pertains to his misery from the first section, and all this leads him to his actions in the third section.

And so as we study God’s word this morning we’ll first see the problem that David faced, and that we too may face. We’ll then consider the petition we see in response. And finally we’ll consider the solution to the problem.

1 - The Problem (13:1-2)

Look with me from verse 1 as we consider the problem:

Psalm 13:1–2 · ESV

¹How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?How long will you hide your face from me?²How long must I take counsel in my souland have sorrow in my heart all the day?How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?

The first thing many of us will notice when we read this is the repeated phrase: How long.

And this is really key for understanding the depths of David’s despair. This isn’t like how we can all have better days or worse days, and you wake up one morning and you’re not feeling great so you’re in a bad mood.

David is crying out How long, O Lord, because he doesn’t see an end in sight. He’s been in this situation for a long time. He’s waiting for the Lord to act, for him to rise up and do something, to remedy the situation.

But nothing is happening.

God is not acting.

David is crying out because he knows that the Lord should be acting. We saw last week in verse 5 of Psalm 12, a Psalm also of David, “Because the poor are plundered, because the needy groan, I will now arise,” says the Lord; “I will place him in the safety for which he longs.”

David knows the Lord, he knows his character, he knows what he has said, he knows that the Lord is not a liar.

And yet his cries to the Lord here of How Long are not merely performative. They aren’t disingenuous as if he really is okay and he’s just faking this despair so he can write a nice psalm.

No his cries are based on his real, human experience. He truly does feel this despair, and his question Will you forget me forever? is genuine.

Yet even in that, we must be careful to not read too far into what David is saying. As we’ve seen he does know the Lord. And the very fact that he is praying and crying out to the Lord shows that he recognises even in this feeling of desertion that he has, that he still knows the Lord will hear his cries.

Rather what David is doing is calling the Lord to be consistent to his character, to call him to action.

And I wonder, as we consider David’s crying out to the Lord here, is the pattern of our lives one that matches up with David’s example?

When we feel this kind of deep abandonment, or even in situations that aren’t as bad, is our reaction to cry out to the Lord anyway? Do we recognise that God is sovereign over all things that we experience?

I expect for many our natural inclination is to rather run further away. Rather than turning to, and trusting God, even when it feels like he’s left us, we instead return to our old way of living. Trusting ourselves, the power of the rulers and authorities, forgetting God’s character.

Like David we can be tempted to think Will you forget me forever? When will my suffering end. When will this despair end. When will this situation end. I can’t see the end of the tunnel.

I’m sure for many you’ve been in trials and sufferings for a long time. I’m preaching this same word to myself also. And how often can we begin to despair, or feel there is no hope. This will go on forever.

For some our reaction might be to do an Irish – “Ah sure it’ll be grand” and become apathetic or resign ourselves to our situation, or to give up on the bit of hope we have left.

The reality is that with some trials and suffering we do need to accept that some things will be with us for our earthly lives such as the thorn in Paul’s flesh which, though he prayed about multiple times, he subsequently stopped praying about.

But for other trials we experience we might want to instead consider whether we are praying in the right manner. As James writes in his letter You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly.

Oftentimes we need wisdom, from the Holy Spirit working in us, and him working in our brothers and sisters who know and love us in the church. Wisdom to know how to approach these periods of long suffering.

But the feeling of abandonment, as if the Lord has forgotten you, that his face is hidden from you, that you are sorrowful in your heart because you don’t have his counsel.

This is not the same as other trials we face. And we’ll see a bit later how to respond to this feeling of desertion.

David feels this desertion as if, verse 1, the Lord has hidden his face from him.

What does it mean for God to hide his face from someone?

The phrase appears quite a lot in the bible, especially in the Psalms. But one of the earlier references to the concept is found in the famous Aaronic blessing that God teaches to Moses.

Numbers 6:24–26 · ESV

²⁴The Lord bless you and keep you;²⁵the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;²⁶the Lord lift up his face upon you and give you peace.

For the Lord to look upon someone in this way was to signify his blessing on them, and conversely, for him to hide his face would signify the removal of this blessing.

So why as believers, those of whom God has said: “I will never leave you nor forsake you”, would God hide his face from us? That we would not experience his blessing and would feel as though he had left or forsaken us.

Firstly, I think, is the situation where we feel as though God has hidden his face from us.

Until Jesus returns we live in the already-but-not-yet stage, where we have already been freed from slavery to sin, and yet we still do stumble and fall back into our old way of living.

And although all our guilt and shame has been removed from us, oftentimes when we sin, we don’t bring our sin before God in repentance, but we are ashamed. All we can see is our sin and we don’t see God waiting for us with open arms.

So we feel like God has hidden his face. We heap up extra burdens on ourselves as we run further away from him rather than turning to him again.

We might intellectually know of the words in Hebrews: Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. But if we don’t actually draw near, we feel that God has hidden his face.

But there are also times where this isn’t the case. Where it is not that we just feel like God has hidden his face, but where it seems that he really has.

And so we again ask ourselves why?

And I think the answer, which we’ll see reveal itself as we work our way through the rest of the psalm, is that God does so because he loves us.

Just as a loving Father disciplines his son, God disciplines his children because he loves them. And because he wants to teach them to trust in him and rely on him, he sometimes hides his face from them in order to force them to return to him again.

In verse 2 we see that David is still in this place of feeling that God has hidden his face and has abandoned him, as he says How Long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day?

It is indeed a lamentable thing to have no one’s counsel or advice to take but your own. It seems like whatever situation David is in, he has neither the counsel of God, as God has hidden his face, or even any other friends or advisors.

This is very counter cultural to the world we live in today, where independence, self-sufficiency, and a trust in one’s own ideas, thoughts, opinions trump all else.

Taking your own advice, trusting your heart, finding your own truth are all seen as good things in our culture, but David rightly says that this leads to sorrow in his heart all the day.

We aren’t made to simply do just whatever we think. We shouldn’t feel the need to know everything, to get everything right on our own, or to make decisions on our own. God, after creating man, says that it is not good that man should be alone.

We need wisdom and advice from each other, and most importantly, wisdom from God. And as Christians we can rejoice that we don’t need to take our own counsel alone, but that the Lord Jesus promised to send his Holy Spirit, also called the Counsellor, to come to us.

And so when we feel this sorrow, a deep sorrow that is constantly with us all the day, a sorrow which comes not just from the outward reality of our circumstances, but is a sorrow that comes from the feeling of abandonment by God, we can remember the God who became man and was called a man of sorrows.

This God knows our pain. And he is sovereign over all things. The same man will return one day to take away all our sorrow. And as we’ll explore again later – we can even rejoice in this sorrow.

We see in this first section of the Psalm David’s problem. He is struggling to trust in God, and feels as though God has abandoned him, as he doesn’t see God acting.

And so he cries out to God How Long? How long before you do something about all this!

But even the order of David’s complaints in verses one and two show his priorities. David does not have anguish just over his circumstances, but because of how they affect his relationship with God.

His complaints begin with being forgotten by God, and his face being hidden from him, and end with David’s enemy being exalted over him.

2 - The Petition (13:3-4)

Having laid out his problem before God, in our second section David now moves to petitioning God based on his problems from above.

Look with me from verse 3:

Psalm 13:3–4 · ESV

³Consider and answer me, O Lord my God;light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death,⁴lest my enemy say, “I have prevailed over him,”lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken.

Notice how David’s petitions to God are based on the circumstances he found himself in in verses 1 and 2.

Rather than God forgetting him, David prays verse 3 consider…me.

Instead of being satisfied with taking his own counsel he prays answer me.

He prays for God to light up his eyes as he can’t stand God hiding his face.

He connects his prayer to his enemy being exalted over him verse 2 with his enemy boasting of prevailing over him verse 4, and his foes rejoicing that he is shaken verse 4 again with the sorrow in his heart in verse 2.

As David prays these petitions, it’s clear that he doesn’t fully believe that God has forgotten him or hidden his face completely.

God is sustaining David’s faith even as he is hiding his face from him, that he would turn again in prayer to God, and rely on him.

As you read David’s prayer in these verses, do you pray like David does?

Do you believe that God will answer prayer? Do you pray in such a way that you expect him to answer as David does?

We see that David gives three lests as he prays. Three consequences that he sees that will happen if God does not act, if he does not answer his prayer.

This isn’t David trying to, or thinking that, he can strongarm God into doing what he wants. Rather, he is seeking to show God why he should answer his prayer, that he should do so in order to stay true to his character, which we’ll see as we examine his petition more closely.

David’s petition is for God, having considered and answered David, to light up his eyes.

David’s biggest problem that he recognised was that he felt abandoned by God, that God had hidden his face from him.

And David recognises that he needs his eyes enlightened again. To once again be able to see that which he had before.

Paul picks up on this language when he writes to the churches in Ephesus, where he prays for the Christians there saying:

Ephesians 1:16–18 · ESV

¹⁶I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, ¹⁷that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of Glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him, ¹⁸having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints.

When Paul writes this he is writing to Christians. Those, who like David, know and love and follow God. Those who have experienced his love and kindness.

But he recognises, as David does, and as we need to, that we don’t always see God as we should. Whether because of our own sin, or complacency, or because God wants us to seek him because of our need to trust in him more, we need the eyes of our hearts enlightened to see him clearly again.

David contrasts this light, the light that comes with seeing God; knowing him and being known by him, to the darkness that comes with the sleep of death. Verse 3: light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death.

David’s petition to God to light up his eyes is that to not see God is to be dead. It is to be like those who don’t know him and follow him, those who are spiritually dead, which David is experiencing in this time of abandonment.

Again, this isn’t some threat to God of: “Reveal yourself or I’ll kill myself”, rather David is appealing to God by saying that it would be right for God to enlighten his eyes, because those who have darkened eyes are those who cannot see God and are dead, unlike David who does follow God.

David recognises that it is God who has power over life and death, and who can breathe life into him again by renewing his eyes.

The second two reasons that we see for David’s petition are intertwined. And we can understand them by seeing the context of the psalm.

Most of your bible’s probably have different titles of sections and paragraphs written throughout. These are added by the publishers of the bibles and are not the inspired word of God.

However, many psalms do have titles, such as Psalm 13, who’s title says: To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David. This title is part of the original text, and is part of scripture, which as we’ve been learning this week at Holiday Bible Club is all breathed out by God.

Knowing this is a psalm of David means we know things about the author. David was God’s anointed King. He was chosen by God.

And so when David asks in verse 2: How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? This isn’t just any person asking how long their enemy will be exalted over them.

No, it is David asking God how long he will let an enemy be exalted over the anointed one that God has chosen. If God’s enemies were being exalted over God’s chosen anointed King, then it would bring dishonour upon God, it would bring shame to him, and serve to show to the nations that he was not powerful, and couldn’t uphold his promises.

So when David says verse 4 lest my enemy say: “I have prevailed over him”, it is following on from what he has previously said.

David asks God to light up his eyes, so that he can see God, otherwise he will be truly abandoned and die. If David dies, then his enemies will boast that they have prevailed over him. This will dishonour God who had anointed David as his king.

Similarly his final reason at the end of verse 4 is lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken. He doesn’t want them to rejoice in the state that he is in, where he is sorrowful all the day because he feels abandoned by God. If his enemies think he is abandoned by God then the nations will think that God is a liar, and will not, or cannot, fulfil his promises to David.

And as Christians we should have this same attitude as David, especially in our prayers.

If we want to seek God’s glory and honour, we should pray for Christians and churches in countries where they are persecuted. We should pray that the powers of the world, the designs of Satan, and all those who seek to boast over and against God and his church would be humbled.

We should pray these prayers for our own nation too. That the enemies of the church of Christ would not prevail. That they would not have reason to rejoice over us.

As Christians we should expect persecution while we’re in this world, but we should also pray that God would shut all boasting mouths, and trust in the return of Christ when we know that all knees will bow before him.

David’s petition to God amidst his feelings of abandonment and spiritual darkness, is to ask God to remember him and to act in accordance with his character. To work in David for his glory, and to be true to the promises he has made to David.

3 - The Solution (13:5-6)

Which brings us to our final section in our psalm this morning as we see the solution to David’s problem. Let’s look from verse 5:

Psalm 13:5–6 · ESV

⁵But I have trusted in your steadfast love;my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.⁶I will sing to the Lord,because he has dealt bountifully with me.

As David cries out to God from his darkness and depression, as he petitions God to answer him, he remembers God, he remembers what he has done for him in the past and chooses to trust in him.

The solution to David’s problem is to be reminded of the nature of his relationship with God. Listen to how Paul encourages the Ephesian church in his letter to them.

Ephesians 2:12–13 · ESV

¹²Remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. ¹³But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

As Christians we need to be constantly reminded of the gospel. Of the hope that we have. Of the nature of our relationship with Jesus. That we were at one time separated from God, but now we have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

Notice what David says is the reason he has hope in verse 5. It is because he has trusted in your steadfast love. His hope and trust is not in anything he has done, it is not in himself, or in his feelings at any time. But it is completely grounded in God and what he has done. The one in whom he trusts in is steadfast, and so he knows his hope is secure.

And whether or not the salvation that David’s heart is rejoicing in, that he is considering here, is a temporal salvation from enemies before him, or of salvation from sin, either way for us today we can have trust in the steadfast love of God because of the salvation that we have in Jesus.

We can rejoice in that salvation, regardless of whether God will see fit to deliver us from the enemies or situations that we are currently in. If he has defeated our ultimate enemy, death, then he is powerful enough to be trusted over any situation we may be in.

See how great the change in David is when he considers again what God has done for him. Where only a few verses previous he has been lamenting his spiritual darkness, how he felt abandoned by God, and how if God did not act and lighten up his eyes he would die –

Now his heart, which had sorrow all day long, is rejoicing! No longer is there a threat that his foes will rejoice – because he is the one rejoicing!

David’s comfort is not in anything he has done, not in trusting the counsel of his own heart, or his power or might, it is not in any change of circumstance, but simply by remembering and trusting again in the steadfast love of God.

If our relationship with God depends on us, if it depends on our feelings, our mood, our intellectual understanding, our spiritual experiences, our works, our triumphs, our failures, our sin, our righteousness, then when we arrive at this place of spiritual darkness that David is in at the beginning of this psalm then there would be no hope.

We would simply spiral down more and more. We would in our feeling of abandonment turn further away and feel more abandoned and this would cause a vicious cycle which would end in despair and death.

But, Christian, your relationship is grounded in Jesus himself. He is your cornerstone. He is the founder and finisher of our faith. Your circumstances, your feelings, your sins, don’t change that relationship.

They don’t push Jesus away. He has promised that he will never leave you nor forsake you. He has not forgotten you, and when you turn again to him in trust and faith he will not hide his face from you.

He has sent his Holy Spirit to give you counsel, and his church to encourage you. You can have joy that comes from him alone. A joy that allows us to rejoice even in trials and suffering.

And you can know that if our greatest enemy, death itself, has been defeated, then whatever enemies we face in our lives are nothing to him.

If we know all these things, if we believe them, if we learn to trust the God who has told us these truths about himself in his word, then we can rejoice.

We can sing to him on the mountain or in the valley.

When we feel forgotten by God we can remember how he has dealt with us in the past, how he has brought us from death to life, and be comforted that he is with us always, even to the end of the age.

If our posture before God depends on him, on his character, on his attributes, on his actions, on his love for us – then our joy will not be based on our circumstances, but based on our great God and King instead.

We see how the way David responds in this psalm is like the father of the boy with an unclean spirit who says to Jesus – Lord I believe, help my unbelief!

David believes. He cries out to the Lord How long? He prays to God to consider and answer him. He wants God to act because he knows that he can. And as his prayer, a mix of belief and doubt, concludes, he responds by trusting.

Would you pray a prayer like that? Or do you think it would make you weak if you did?

Praying like David, or praying like that father doesn’t make us weak.

We’re already weak.

But God is strong. He is steadfast. He is trustworthy.

And he teaches us, as he teaches David, to trust in him, rather than trusting in ourselves.

When children learn how to ride a bike, they often learn with training wheels on. And when the child gets better and better at riding, and has learned, then they don’t need the training wheels any longer.

If a child who said they had learned how to ride a bike protested to the training wheels being taken off, you would wonder what did they really trust in.

Did they trust in their ability to be able to ride the bike? Or did they trust in the training wheels?

The child’s parent needs to take off the training wheels, in order for the child to be able to demonstrate whether they really trust in their ability to ride the bike or not. And to grow in that trust as they experience cycling without the training wheels.

In times where God hides his face from his children, he is not acting as the training wheels which are now removed. God isn’t teaching us to rely on ourselves and not on him.

Rather he is teaching us to trust in him. To demonstrate that we really do trust him by turning back to him. If he hid his face and we didn’t even notice, or we didn’t care, or we ran to trusting in ourselves or things from this world instead, it would highlight that we don’t trust him as we should.

We need to learn to trust in God at all times, even when it doesn’t feel like he’s there. And the more we exercise this trust and put it into practice, the easier it will be in the future when further trials and sufferings come to us.

When we looked at the heading of this psalm earlier we considered how it helps us to know that this is a psalm of David. But the earlier part of the title is helpful for us too. To the choirmaster.

David wrote this psalm for the benefit of others. He wanted them to learn from his experiences. And as we mentioned earlier, as we’ve been singing through the week – all scripture is God-breathed. David wrote this psalm under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit for the edification of God’s people.

God wants to teach us how to respond, to learn from him, and from David’s experiences. This is behaviour for us to model. When we’re feeling abandoned we should model the prayer of this psalm. Including the conclusion of remembering and turning again to trust God even when he does not feel near.

And we can and should also use this psalm for the encouragement of our brothers and sisters here in Redeemer.

How would things look different as our church family if we trusted each other enough to share when we feel this abandonment. That we wouldn’t feel like we were ‘fake Christians’ or that there was something wrong with us, but that we know we would be met with love and encouragement when we’re struggling.

That we could then help each other when we feel like this, when we experience spiritual darkness, despair, depression.

God has given us the church as a gift for one another. As we seek to love one another we should be praying for others that they would consider Christ afresh. We should remind each other of the love we know that each of us has for Jesus.

We should tell each other of the cornerstone of our faith!

This is part of what we do as we gather together each Sunday. Yes, primarily we are here to worship and glorify God, but also to encourage one another. To mature one another. To remind one another of the truths of the gospel. To sing together as verse 6 says our response to the gospel should be.

As we share the Lord’s Supper together we are told by Jesus that one of its purposes is for us to be reminded of him. We, like David, need this reminder.

As we hear God’s word preached we are matured, we grow in knowledge of understanding and truth, we grow in sanctification, we are rebuked and admonished, and ultimately we should see our need to cling to and return to the gospel which we so easily forget.

As we pray together we pray following the manner of the Lord’s prayer, ascribing glory to God and seeking his will on earth. We pray modelling the prayer of David in this psalm – recognising how we feel in our circumstances, but still trusting in God and petitioning him, seeking his honour and glory.

As David prays see how the sorrow in his heart from verse 2 is turned into rejoicing verse 5. As we pray, we love God more, and as we love him more we pray more, and experience this joy more.

As we sing together we sing as in verse 6 because he has dealt bountifully with me. We sing to the Lord because God has been faithful to us in the past. We sing in rejoicing of how he has worked powerfully in the world and in our lives, his grace and mercy and glory being seen in the church.

And what’s key in this psalm is what we see in these final verses. As we see David’s response, of trusting in the Lord, rejoicing and singing – notice how we are not told that God has acted in response to his prayer as David has been asking.

The only acts of God that are mentioned are those of what he has done in the past.

Whatever situation David is in does not seem to have changed or improved outwardly, there is no mention of his enemies defeat. Rather, David’s soul, his inmost being, no longer feels that God has abandoned or forgotten him. How could he feel that way when he remembers how God has saved him, when he remembers his love and his power?

He can rejoice in his heart even in his suffering.

The Christian life will be one of suffering while we still live in this fallen, broken, sinful world. But we can have peace and true, real comfort from God by remembering and trusting in him – even in our suffering.

Speaking on this spiritual darkness and feeling of abandonment R.C Sproul says this:

We may also think that [this] is something completely incompatible with the fruit of the Spirit, not only that of faith but also that of joy. Once the Holy Spirit has flooded our hearts with a joy unspeakable, how can there be room in that chamber for such darkness? It is important for us to make a distinction between the spiritual fruit of joy and the cultural concept of happiness. A Christian can have joy in his heart while there is still spiritual depression in his head. The joy that we have sustains us through these dark nights and is not quenched by spiritual depression. The joy of the Christian is one that survives all downturns in life.

And if you’re wondering how David can have assurance in the present, or assurance for the future because of what God has done in the past, and why you can have that too, it is because of the doctrine of the preservation of the saints.

Here’s what Paul says about followers of Christ in Romans chapter 8:

Romans 8:28–30 · ESV

²⁸And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. ²⁹For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. ³⁰And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.

And this is what he writes to the church in Philippi:

Philippians 1:6 · ESV

⁶I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

Those whom God has called. Those whom he has chosen. Those who are followers of Christ, he will persevere to the end.

Again, this doesn’t depend on you. It doesn’t depend on us to add anything to the work of Jesus, his life, death, and resurrection. But on the finished work of Jesus.

And so we can have assurance that because God has dealt bountifully with us in the past, because of his steadfast love, we can trust that he will keep us til the return of Jesus.

If you want to read more on this I would highly recommend reading chapters 17 and 18 of the 2nd London Baptist Confession of Faith which contains some of the most beautiful and encouraging writings on this assurance and hope that we have as God’s children.

And so we can cry out with David How long, O Lord, not because we are questioning whether or not he will act, but with an expectancy that he will. His actions may not be what we expect. Did David expect that his feelings of desertion would be remedied by his own prayers turning his heart back in remembrance of God?

The psalm begins with David wondering if God has forgotten him. But ends with David remembering what God has done. And as David remembers God he is assured and trusts that God has not forgotten him.

Conclusion

As we began this morning, we considered the child who had lost his parents and was panicking, wondering if he had been abandoned.

But how great is the joy and relief, and how tightly does the child then cling to his parents when he is found by them again.

When we return to remembering God, and trusting in him wholly, we cling to him tightly if we have experienced the feeling of God hiding his face from us.

This God that we trust in became man, and while hanging on a cross cried out My God, My God, why have you forsaken me, before he did sleep the sleep of death.

And while it seemed that his enemy had prevailed over him, the opposite was true. As Jesus, having died, was raised up again, defeating the power of death.

And so we can rejoice in his salvation. A salvation that he offers to us freely, because of his steadfast love for us. Let us trust in him.

Psalm 13:5–6 · ESV

⁵I have trusted in your steadfast love;my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.⁶I will sing to the Lord,because he has dealt bountifully with me.