Series: Songs of Worship—Getting Real With God
Sermon: Forsaken
Speaker and Writer: Elia King

​Refresh: Open with prayer. Ask God for understanding through the Holy Spirit.

Read: Psalm 22:1–18 (Message). As you read the Message paraphrase, note 1–3 insights or questions.

Reflect: When I was about six years old, my dad used to pick me up from after school care. One day when he arrived, I was sitting on the picnic table outside in tears. A couple of the older boys had been picking on me and it was more than my six-year-old self could take on that particular day. I was beside myself. My dad asked what had happened and I told him.

To this day, I remember my dad saying to me, “You don’t have to worry about those boys. Maybe they need someone to go and show them how it feels to be picked on . . .”

My dad didn’t get out of the car. He didn’t have to. Just knowing that I had such a powerful ally was all the reassurance I needed to head back to school the next day with all of the confidence in the world that my rescue was at hand. All I had to do was ask.

This was not the case for the Psalmist when he wrote down the words to this song. It’s one thing to be forgotten, injured, or betrayed. But the face that the Psalmist directs this question to God suggests a deeper hurt. He recognizes that God is present, but not able or willing to act on his behalf. God, how could you ignore my pain? How could you let me suffer like this? I thought you cared about me!

We have a difficult time with these kinds of questions because we don’t really have good answers. We have explanations. Theologians have given us theories about why God couldn’t or wouldn’t act on Jesus’ behalf when He asked the same question. But even in the best of those answers, we are rarely satisfied.

Maybe that’s because we don’t really want (or don’t really need) an explanation for why pain exists. All we really want is to not need to endure pain, because we believe what the Psalmist told us in the introduction to the whole collection: The righteous should prosper, but the wicked should be destroyed.

Here is the best answer I have heard for the question of why God allows pain to exist: I don’t know. But like the Psalmist, and like Job, and like Jesus when He prayed this prayer, I believe that God is present with us in our pain. And somehow that gives me hope.

Recalibrate: What are some painful situations that remain unresolved in your life?

Respond: Pray that you will experience God’s presence with you during painful situation rather than simply praying for rescue.

Research: Listen to Frederic Chopin’s Prelude in E Minor. The whole piece takes the listener on a journey from the first note to the last note. What emotions do you experience as you listen to the song? Do you see parallels between the song and your faith journey?