Has God Forgotten Us?

“All Your waves and breakers have swept over me . . .” (Psalm 42:7,9).

“Why do You cast me off? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? …You have severely broken us in the place of jackals, and covered us with the shadow of death” (Psalm 43:2,9).

“You have cast us off and put us to shame, and You do not go out with our armies. . .   For Your sake we are killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter (Psalm 44:9, 22).

Sometimes God seems to send one blow after another, pounding and breaking us until we wonder whether he has forgotten us or even forsaken us, especially on those occasions when it seems that we are not suffering as a consequence of our sin.

At these times, we need to remember that countless believers have voiced the same cry of desolation, which was echoed by our Lord on the cross (Matthew 27:46). But that sacrificial death, followed by the resurrection, enabled Paul to quote Psalm 44:22 and then proclaim that no “created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:36, 39).