It is through the most difficult trials that God often brings the sweetest discoveries of Himself.
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from helping me, and from the words of my groaning?
My God, I cry in the daytime, but you don’t answer;
in the night season, and am not silent.
-Psalm 22:1-2, WEB
To be forsaken even by God. To be unable to understand why such an evil has to happen, has to be allowed to happen by the One Good God who can do all things. Why hasn’t He stopped this from happening? Why has He allowed me to be hurt like this? And where is He now when I need Him most of all?
But there is no answer. There is no sermon. There is no comfort. All that follows is silence.
What must a soul do? In all its pain, a soul cries out even louder. It hurls all its frustrations towards heaven. It narrates a long list of all the good deeds it has done, of all the noble acts that have been unrewarded. In frustration, the soul asks why such a punishment is given in return? The soul asks for justice and for mercy, but there is none. All that follows is silence.
Hanging upon the cross, Jesus uttered the same words, and asked the same question: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
I Can’t Tell You Why
I can’t tell you why
Things must happen the way they did,
Why this terrible pain
Must now break your heart.
I can’t tell you why
God is now silent as we speak,
Why He allowed such things
To happen to His child.
But I can tell you
How He loves you so,
And how He never changed
Through all these years.
I can tell you that
Though He seems so far
In truth He is with you
And never more so near.
So hold on through the shadows
And take heart through the night
Someone watches over you
And cares for you tonight
I can’t tell you why
He chose to be unseen
Or why He waits for tears to fall
But it can never be
because He doesn’t care
For we know His love
Is the greatest of them all!
Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. – John 15, WEBBE
