I Can't Stand it Any Longer, and Can't Figure Out Why

In our family devotions tonight I was struck with the extremity of contrast between the life we experience and the life we know by divine revelation.  We were reading Psalm 44.  About half of it is among the more depressing half-chapters in the Bible.

But you have rejected us and disgraced us and have not gone out with our armies. You have made us turn back from the foe, and those who hate us have gotten spoil. You have made us like sheep for slaughter and have scattered us among the nations. You have sold your people for a trifle, demanding no high price for them. You have made us the taunt of our neighbors, the derision and scorn of those around us. You have made us a byword among the nations, a laughingstock among the peoples. All day long my disgrace is before me, and shame has covered my face at the sound of the taunter and reviler, at the sight of the enemy and the avenger.

And if that was not bad enough, there is no reason why.  The Psalmist has no awareness of sin and failure, no reason for rebuke and chastisement.  He has been doing his utmost to be a devout believer:

All this has come upon us, though we have not forgotten you, and we have not been false to your covenant. Our heart has not turned back, nor have our steps departed from your way; yet you have broken us in the place of jackals and covered us with the shadow of death.

If anyone ever had a reason to ask “WHY!” it is this Psalmist. I am reminded of the Iraqi Christian, devoted to Christ, seeing his wife and children taken away by the forces of ISIS before he is killed, or the young devout Christian mother suffering the final stages of cancer.  How do they hold up in the face of it?

But the really striking thing to me is his comment, “Yet for your sake we are killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”  Why is that striking?  Because if you look at the most exhilarating half-chapter in the whole Bible, this comment is quoted right there.  Right there in Roman 8, in the portion that begins with the familiar “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good . . .” and ends a crescendo of exultations with “[nothing] will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus,” is a quotation of this very text, “we are killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”  Paul was not merely quoting a phrase he remembered from somewhere.  No, quite aware of the sufferings Christians face he was aiming to make a point: Even though things may be seriously, gruelingly, excruciatingly, amazingly, overwhelmingly bad for the Christian, though all in earth is against us, and even heaven seems against us in these worst of times, yet God’s purpose for His elect will prevail.  He will conform them into the image of the Son of His infinite eternal love, they will be more than conquerors and nothing, nothing, nothing! – will prevent that.   

So, in the worst of times go to God like the Psalmist and pray, “Rise up; come to our help! Redeem us for the sake of your steadfast love!”  But before you do, spend a little time surveying the Cross, and then strengthen your heart with this reminder of God’s steadfast love: God is for me!

He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.