Photo from The Freeman News

    Our municipality was one of the heavily flooded areas of Typhoon Tino last year. There was a strange, uneasy feeling hearing the place I grew up in being aired on the news and seeing familiar faces flash across the screen on boats while being rescued. It was at the peak of the exposé of the country's flood control ghost projects that these were occurring. One woman lost eleven members of her family, and there are many more gut-wrenching stories of lost homes and lives in that one natural disaster. 

    It has been seven months after the tragedy, and as of writing, our national government is currently in disarray - caught in a war of political parties. It seems that justice for the people remains far off, and a bright, progressive future for the nation remains questionable. Sadly, those who suffer the most are the ones at the bottom of the ladder. These are the ones who are forced to go on with life from scratch, with scars from the calamity; the ones who will not be paid for not showing up to work; the ones who can only rely on the kindness of others to survive. 

    In these heartbreaking times, one could question, "Where is God in all of these? or How can a good God let all these happen?" And to be honest, with all the hurt that the people of our community have gone through, I have also asked the same things. 


    The opening verse of Psalm 22 speaks of David's distress during a difficult circumstance in his life, 

"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? 
Why are you so far from saving me, 
from the words of my groaning?" (v.1)


    The psalm expresses the restlessness of David when no help or relief has come to lessen the agony. His laments are for the threats to his life from his enemies and the mockery he has received from his very own people. Our present groanings, on the other hand, are rooted in the constant threats in our lives due to the greed and abuses of those whom God has supposedly installed to protect the powerless and deliver justice to the poor. 

    While David's circumstances are different from ours, the psalm articulated the overwhelming feeling of being helpless against a more superior power, which resonated very much with ours. David's despair led him to question, yet his responses also revealed his faith despite his unfortunate condition. 


David Recalled God's Faithfulness 

   When we are in the middle of a struggle, most of the time our perspectives are blurred, and our hearts tend to forget that God remains in complete control of the situation. The moment we lose sight of God, we resort to our own strength and capabilities. And when we find ourselves incapable of changing our situation, anxiety creeps in, and in this, hopelessness begins to dominate our hearts. 

    David's response: proclaim God's unfailing faithfulness: 

Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel. 
In you our fathers trusted; they trusted,
 and you delivered them. 
To you they cried and were rescued; 
in you they trusted and were not put to shame.  (vv 3-5)

and in verses 9-11 

Yet you are he who took me from the womb;
you made me trust you at my mother’s breasts. 
On you was I cast from my birth,
and from my mother’s womb 
you have been my God. 
Be not far from me, for trouble is near, 
and there is none to help. (vv 9-11)


    David knew of the God of his fathers - the God that displayed miracles that were impossible to comprehend by finite minds and, above all, the God that cared for His people, who rescued them in times of need. While his situation makes him feel otherwise, David believed that this same God has His eyes on him and cares for him. He recalled the many times God had proved to be in their midst - from his birth to his present. 

    And in this, we can also cling: the God Who is Faithful to deliver them from the past is still the same God who will deliver His people in our time. It is hard to find this true when our daily reality portrays severe and constant suffering, but like the psalmist, we can always recall the saints in the past - those who trusted in the Lord and were delivered. 


David Expressed His Emotions to God

"Many bulls encompass me; 
strong bulls of Bashan surround me; 
they open wide their mouths at me, 
like a ravening and roaring lion.

I am poured out like water,
 and all my bones are out of joint;
my heart is like wax; 
it is melted within my breast; 
my strength is dried up like a potsherd,
and my tongue sticks to my jaws;
you lay me in the dust of death." (vv 12-15)

    The continuing verses showed us how David described his enemies and his current disposition -- heart melted, and strength dried up. He does not dismiss the reality of his situation. In fact, he presents it as it is to God, expressing his anguish and weariness. In this, we saw the nature of their relationship: David knew God intimately enough to be transparent with what he felt. 

    While we already know of this, sometimes we treat God as distant, unreachable, and unable to listen to our emotions. The text shows us otherwise: David freely communicated his heart to God, and so could we. He is the same Father who listens to the cries of His children. 


David Prayed for Deliverance

But you, O LORD, do not be far off!
O you my help, come quickly to my aid! 
Deliver my soul from the sword,
my precious life from the power of the dog! 
Save me from the mouth of the lion!
You have rescued me from the horns of the wild oxen! (vv 19-21)

  The next thing David did after describing his current condition was to pray that God would save him from the power of his enemies. From the assumption that God had forsaken him, David here has regained his confidence and prayed for deliverance. He knew that it was only the Lord who could rescue him and give him the relief he so desperately needed.
  
  In a nation where trust was weaponized and power utilized to oppress, we can have confidence that God, from the ancient of days, hears our modern desperations. This is an encouragement to pray to God for a country that needs saving - for the leaders to have fear of the Lord, and for its people to be saved from oppression. 


    The psalm started with a question of "why have you forsaken me?"  and it's hard to blame David for ever feeling that way, because even in ourselves, we sometimes assume that God has left us. Scriptures correct us, though, because only one member of God's people was ever truly abandoned (and it was done on our behalf): Jesus Christ. 

    As he hung on the cross, He uttered David's words: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34). Yet it was not a feeling or an assumption like what David felt - Jesus was truly abandoned by God. “To be forsaken by God is the cry of the damned, and he was damned for us. So he used these words because there was a real forsakenness,” said John Piper. 

    This necessary sacrifice made an innocent Son be abandoned by the Father, granting us deliverance from sin, from which every corruption and chaos springs. The serial plunders that birthed ghost projects and flooded communities were only manifestations of an inner and deeper depravity that has been in our nature since birth. 

    It is right to speak against the corrupt, to stand up for justice for the poor, and fight against abuses - these are rightly taught by the Scriptures. Yet, the internal corruption that is ever-present in our own hearts is also to be rightly addressed, for this sinfulness of ours warrants the same wrath from a holy God and grants us eternal abandonment that cannot be reversed. 

"Jesus was forsaken to satisfy 
the demands of the justice of God. 
He had to bear in himself the 
full measure of divine punishment, 
the full measure of divine wrath 
that the sins he bore for his people 
actually deserved,"  - RC Sproul

    Reforming our hearts from our depravity is beyond our capability. Yet in the mercy of this holy and loving God, Christ afforded that to us. His being forsaken on the Calvary assures us of being welcomed into his holy nation, a people for his own possession (1Peter 2:9).

    Why is this important to know? Because this world will continue in its own distorted, God-ignorant ways. New schemes will be plotted as old ways were exposed, suffering will just be as present or become worse, depressive pain, like what David felt, will attack at some point  -- this is just the reality of a sin-saturated and morally perverted world.

    And instead of despair, we endure with hope. Because we know that we will not be abandoned. The promise in Christ is not just salvation from God's wrath but also belongingness to a better nation in perfect fellowship with Him in eternity. "He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore (Revelation 21:4). The truth of the gospel of Christ will give us eyes to see our present sufferings as momentary hardships compared to a glory beyond all comparison (2 Corinthians 4:17).


    This groaning for sincere service, for truth, and for justice will finally find its rest when the King comes back to dethrone every ruler, every power, and every authority to establish His kingdom. Until then, the call is to respond as the psalmist did - in the proclamation of the Lord's faithfulness, in prayer, and in confidence that God will not forsake us. 

And just as the psalm concludes, our end, too, shall be in praise: 

"From you comes my praise 
in the great congregation; 
my vows I will perform before those who fear him. 
The afflicted shall eat and be satisfied;
those who seek him shall praise the LORD!
May your hearts live forever!

All the ends of the earth shall remember
and turn to the LORD,
and all the families of the nations
shall worship before you. 
For kingship belongs to the LORD,
and he rules over the nations." (vv 25-28)