This is a brilliant take on the silence of God. The Lord God is not our patsy, He is not dictated to or by our whims. He will not be commandeered by our cries. His outcome is all that matters. He will answer in his timing and on His terms. Not ours. The justice of God grinds slowly but surely, we must bow before Him, not shake our fist at his apparent silence. He is Lord, we are not.
That is precisely the lesson of Psalm 13. David cries out honestly before God, but he does not remain in despair. The psalm ends not with an answer, but with trust: "I have trusted in Your mercy; my heart shall rejoice in Your salvation."
We are invited to bring our questions, fears, and frustrations before the Lord, but never to forget who He is. God is not absent because He is silent, nor indifferent because He delays. His purposes are larger than our sight, His wisdom deeper than our understanding, and His timing perfect even when it is painful.
Faith is not demanding that God act according to our schedule. Faith is continuing to trust Him when He does not.
Very timely message for me also. Thank you. But may I be so bold as to say that the common belief that God the Father abandoned Jesus on the cross and that the cry of "My God, My God why hast Thou forsaken me" is to be taken literally is in error. I firmly believe He was referring to Psalm 22 by quoting it's first line to proclaim His identification with the whole Psalm and with the line of David. It was affirming His Messiahship from the Cross. After all, the Trinity cannot be separated as they are One and His obedience by going to the cross was pleasing to the Father. I cannot think Jesus even felt abandoned. I like to think Jesus may have actually quoted the whole Psalm from the Cross as a prayer because it ends with the Greek tetelestai, "it is finished."
You are certainly not alone in that interpretation, and there is much to commend it. Psalm 22 begins with a cry of apparent abandonment but ends in vindication, triumph, and the proclamation of God's faithfulness to the nations. Many scholars and Church Fathers have seen our Lord's quotation of the opening verse as intentionally pointing His hearers to the entire psalm and its fulfillment in Him.
I also agree that we must be careful not to speak of the Father and Son as somehow divided in their divine nature. The unity of the Holy Trinity remains perfect and unbroken even at Calvary.
My own view is that Christ truly experienced, in His humanity, the full depth of human suffering, anguish, and dereliction as He bore the sins of the world, while at the same time consciously fulfilling Psalm 22 and revealing Himself as the promised Messiah. The two understandings need not be opposed to one another.
In any case, Psalm 22 stands as one of the most remarkable Messianic passages in Scripture, and its movement from suffering to victory beautifully anticipates both the Cross and the Resurrection.
Thank you for such a thoughtful contribution to the discussion.
I think that is one reason the Psalms continue to speak so powerfully across the centuries. They give voice to questions and struggles that every believer encounters sooner or later. We all have seasons when we wonder why God seems distant or silent.
Yet the testimony of Scripture is that God's silence is never His absence. He remains faithful even when we cannot see what He is doing.
I am glad the article arrived when you needed it. May the Lord strengthen your faith and grant you peace as you continue to trust in Him.
The name David (דָּוִד) literally means beloved. So who is that? The Psalms function as a dialogue between self with a projected outcome. And they are a lived experience where the text validates that experience. Reading it just provides a superficial connection. Yet they are attempting to take inner speech and show what it looks like when expressed.
I agree that one of the enduring strengths of the Psalms is their honesty. They give voice to the inner life of faith—hope, fear, joy, grief, doubt, repentance, and trust—and in doing so they allow believers to recognize their own experience before God.
For that reason, the Psalms are more than words to be analyzed; they are prayers to be prayed and lived. When David cries, rejoices, laments, or praises, generations of believers find their own voices echoed in his.
At the same time, I would add that the Psalms are not merely reflections of human inner speech. They are also inspired Scripture, revealing both the heart of man and the character and purposes of God. They teach us not only how we feel, but how faith responds to those feelings.
That is one reason the Psalter has remained the prayer book of God's people for three thousand years.
In my life over the past number of years I have met many clergy. We sit and chat and I tell them about myself. They have no means to categorize me. They can look and see that I did not fall, have not sinned, nor even need to read the bible to experience what is written. I can't really say they are a lived experience unless I would know.
As a pastor, I have found that every person arrives with a unique story, and God's work in each life often defies our expectations and categories. At the same time, I believe Scripture remains a gift to us because it reveals truths about both God and ourselves that we might otherwise miss.
Whether we come to the Psalms through study, prayer, suffering, or lived experience, they continue to speak across centuries because they address the deepest questions of the human heart.
This is a brilliant take on the silence of God. The Lord God is not our patsy, He is not dictated to or by our whims. He will not be commandeered by our cries. His outcome is all that matters. He will answer in his timing and on His terms. Not ours. The justice of God grinds slowly but surely, we must bow before Him, not shake our fist at his apparent silence. He is Lord, we are not.
Amen, David.
That is precisely the lesson of Psalm 13. David cries out honestly before God, but he does not remain in despair. The psalm ends not with an answer, but with trust: "I have trusted in Your mercy; my heart shall rejoice in Your salvation."
We are invited to bring our questions, fears, and frustrations before the Lord, but never to forget who He is. God is not absent because He is silent, nor indifferent because He delays. His purposes are larger than our sight, His wisdom deeper than our understanding, and His timing perfect even when it is painful.
Faith is not demanding that God act according to our schedule. Faith is continuing to trust Him when He does not.
Very timely message for me also. Thank you. But may I be so bold as to say that the common belief that God the Father abandoned Jesus on the cross and that the cry of "My God, My God why hast Thou forsaken me" is to be taken literally is in error. I firmly believe He was referring to Psalm 22 by quoting it's first line to proclaim His identification with the whole Psalm and with the line of David. It was affirming His Messiahship from the Cross. After all, the Trinity cannot be separated as they are One and His obedience by going to the cross was pleasing to the Father. I cannot think Jesus even felt abandoned. I like to think Jesus may have actually quoted the whole Psalm from the Cross as a prayer because it ends with the Greek tetelestai, "it is finished."
Thank you, Gayle.
You are certainly not alone in that interpretation, and there is much to commend it. Psalm 22 begins with a cry of apparent abandonment but ends in vindication, triumph, and the proclamation of God's faithfulness to the nations. Many scholars and Church Fathers have seen our Lord's quotation of the opening verse as intentionally pointing His hearers to the entire psalm and its fulfillment in Him.
I also agree that we must be careful not to speak of the Father and Son as somehow divided in their divine nature. The unity of the Holy Trinity remains perfect and unbroken even at Calvary.
My own view is that Christ truly experienced, in His humanity, the full depth of human suffering, anguish, and dereliction as He bore the sins of the world, while at the same time consciously fulfilling Psalm 22 and revealing Himself as the promised Messiah. The two understandings need not be opposed to one another.
In any case, Psalm 22 stands as one of the most remarkable Messianic passages in Scripture, and its movement from suffering to victory beautifully anticipates both the Cross and the Resurrection.
Thank you for such a thoughtful contribution to the discussion.
Beautiful message!! Thank you. I needed to read this.
Thank you, Jeffrey.
I think that is one reason the Psalms continue to speak so powerfully across the centuries. They give voice to questions and struggles that every believer encounters sooner or later. We all have seasons when we wonder why God seems distant or silent.
Yet the testimony of Scripture is that God's silence is never His absence. He remains faithful even when we cannot see what He is doing.
I am glad the article arrived when you needed it. May the Lord strengthen your faith and grant you peace as you continue to trust in Him.
The name David (דָּוִד) literally means beloved. So who is that? The Psalms function as a dialogue between self with a projected outcome. And they are a lived experience where the text validates that experience. Reading it just provides a superficial connection. Yet they are attempting to take inner speech and show what it looks like when expressed.
I agree that one of the enduring strengths of the Psalms is their honesty. They give voice to the inner life of faith—hope, fear, joy, grief, doubt, repentance, and trust—and in doing so they allow believers to recognize their own experience before God.
For that reason, the Psalms are more than words to be analyzed; they are prayers to be prayed and lived. When David cries, rejoices, laments, or praises, generations of believers find their own voices echoed in his.
At the same time, I would add that the Psalms are not merely reflections of human inner speech. They are also inspired Scripture, revealing both the heart of man and the character and purposes of God. They teach us not only how we feel, but how faith responds to those feelings.
That is one reason the Psalter has remained the prayer book of God's people for three thousand years.
In my life over the past number of years I have met many clergy. We sit and chat and I tell them about myself. They have no means to categorize me. They can look and see that I did not fall, have not sinned, nor even need to read the bible to experience what is written. I can't really say they are a lived experience unless I would know.
As a pastor, I have found that every person arrives with a unique story, and God's work in each life often defies our expectations and categories. At the same time, I believe Scripture remains a gift to us because it reveals truths about both God and ourselves that we might otherwise miss.
Whether we come to the Psalms through study, prayer, suffering, or lived experience, they continue to speak across centuries because they address the deepest questions of the human heart.