Inspired Cries
Monday (November 3)
Inspired Cries
Psalm 44:1 & 24
O God, we have heard with our ears, our fathers have told us, what deeds you performed in their days, in the days of old. … Why do You hide Your face? Why do you forget our affliction and oppression?
This Scripture hits close to home, doesn’t it? We’ve all complained through a grumbling spirit or lamented through an anguished one something like, “Father, where are You now? You were there parting seas for Moses and stopping the sun for Joshua and defeating Goliaths for David; I’ve read the stories—I’ve preached the stories to my kids—but when will this be my story? When will You part this sea of debt that I’m drowning under, or give answers from doctors and surgeons, or bring my prodigal, drug-addicted son back home, or lead me to a church where I can find community? Why do You seem to cast a blind eye to my affliction and oppression?” We all have our own way of saying that to the LORD, don’t we? Sometimes it doesn’t come out through our mouths; sometimes we nod along to Sunday sermons with ‘amens,’ and never raise Cain, but our Messiah spoke for all of us at Calvary when He cried in the anguish of His human suffering, “Father, why have You forsaken Me?”, and that’s a question we’ve all asked in the midst of our darkest hours.
But stand in awe with me, friend, that Almighty God actually inspired this prayer from the author of Psalm 44. After all, this is Scripture, too, isn’t it? And God not only enabled the poet to lament in such a manner, but He also preserved the lament in a sacred song for all time. To think that Almighty God understands what it is to be in our position. To consider that no one who stood by the cross at Golgotha on the day Jesus cried out for help saw an outpouring of heavenly angels in response, and they all probably murmured to themselves that the Father hadn’t heard or hadn’t cared, but in fact the opposite was true! At the cross, we see a picture of the deepest form of divine love, not the absence of it.
Listen, friend: just as God transformed the suffering of Christ into everlasting glory, so, too, your Psalm 44:24 cries will be transformed into Psalm 44:1 triumphs in the end.