And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
Matthew 27:46
For·sak·en (fərˌsākən) ~ past participle of forsake: abandon, cast aside, desert, disavow, discard, disclaim, disown, drop, jilt, leave, leave high and dry, leave in the lurch, leave stranded, renounce, throw over, turn one's back on, walk out on, wash one's hands of.
Why?! God where are You!? Where were You!? How could You allow.....?! It hurts to feel forsaken, to feel like God Himself has rejected us and left us hanging. It makes us angry and confused. We've all been there. Even Jesus felt it. The most agonizing part of His death for you and me was not the stripes on His back or the nails through His body into the wood. It was the first and only time He felt the Father turn His back and leave Jesus alone, to literally leave Jesus hanging.
After C. S. Lewis lost his wife to cancer, he called out to God for comfort but sensed no reply. Confused, he asked, "What can this mean? Why is He so present a commander in our time of prosperity and so very absent a help in time of trouble?"
When the unthinkable happens, when evil things happen to good people we cry out for help to an all powerful God. And when we've cried out with everything we have, with everything we are and the innocent child still dies, the accident victim never wakes, the disease slowly but surely wins, the rape is not stopped, the drought continues and the crops wither, the flood still takes the home, we are overwhelmed by the pain and the feeling of being forsaken.
We know that we are not perfect, but if we had the power to stop it, to fix it, if we were all powerful we would never allow such a thing. So if God is good how could He let this happen? We can't imagine sitting back and letting the innocent and good people suffer and die without doing something. And neither can God. He looked across time and saw every hurt, devastation and evil that would be done to me and every evil I would do and decided to do something about it. Out of perfect and unselfish love He determined to come, to become human like me, like you, and to suffer an excruciating death and to even feel forsaken for our sake. Jesus was abandoned by everyone, including the Father, when He never came close to deserving it, because He loves us.
He made a way to fix the problem of evil that was a an unfortunate byproduct of the free will necessary for true relationship. Jesus experienced truly being abandoned by the Father while He was on the cross so that when we feel isolated and forsaken we can run to God. He wants to heal our hurts and comfort our heart I can't explain why He doesn't always remove or repair the situations we face on this side of heaven, but I know from experience that if we go to Him rather than away, He is there to wrap His arms around us and hold us while we cry. He is there to comfort and love. We can grow closer to Him and discover His goodness and love in the aftermath of evil in a way that we can never know otherwise.
Abba, help me to run to You rather than away from You. Help me to remember that feeling abandoned doesn't mean that I have been. Jesus was abandoned so that I don't ever have to be, regardless of what it feels like. Be my comfort and my strength in face of fear and pain. Show me Your love and draw me to You, even when my anger and confusion make it hard to trust. I choose to believe that truth that You are good and that You care despite what I may sometimes feel. As I do this, heal my hurt, remove my anger and help me to see and experience the truth of Your goodness and love.
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