“I have lived a long time, but never seen a good man abandoned by the Lord.” Psalm 37:25 TEV
“When things have gone too wrong for too long, you can feel abandoned by God.”
My thoughts today are about “abandonment.”
Just days ago, I was entering a store when a young child was happily enjoying his momentary distraction until he noticed his Dad was not in front of him as he had been moments before. Instantly, his expression changed from carefree to fearful, from cheerful to tearful. Frantic and in a panic, he began crying and calling for Dad, looking right and left for him in every stranger’s face. Then he heard Dad’s voice, and was only content when he saw his face and was back safely in his arms. Young children have an innate fear of being left. I wonder if we ever really outgrow that.
Feeling forsaken is just not a good feeling. It is a sense of having counted on someone who then seems to have let you down, or expecting the supportive company of family or friends only to look around and not find them close by. Maybe that idea is troublesome to any of us because abandonment usually describes leaving something behind as no longer useful, necessary, or valuable. And what one of us ever wants to feel no longer necessary?
I have observed people whose sense of abandonment was out of their own preemptive actions – again and again they would abandon others before they could be forsaken, a defense mechanism learned from some painful incident occurring in their past. In some measure, you will probably feel the pain of being left out or left behind. Some friend will go their own way, whatever their reason, and you will feel forgotten and abandoned. Maybe you were not, but you will feel you are.
Difficult circumstances can make you feel alone – separated, isolated, shut off from others whom you assume have no idea how you feel. Paul described his experience this way: “We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed and broken. We are perplexed, but we don’t give up and quit. We are hunted down, but God never abandons us. We get knocked down, but we get up again and keep going.” 2 Corinthians 4:8-9 NLT. Read it again; a painful but momentary reality is contradicted by a greater and constant reality – “We are . . but we are not . .!”
King David felt abandoned – forsaken by a trusted general, betrayed by his closest confidante and counselor, his throne stolen by his own son, Absalom, but still he rested his soul in this grandest of truths, “Even if my father and mother abandon me, the Lord will hold me close.” Psalm 27:10 NLT. See Psalm 9:9-10 NIV. That’s why David could also write, “I have lived a long time, but I have never seen a good man abandoned by God.” Psalm 37:5 TEV. I don’t think God is going to start with you or me.
But maybe the worst experience of all is to feel that maybe God has abandoned you. Gideon’s story is about that. Read Judges 6-8. Things had gone too wrong for too long. “The Lord is with you . . if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all the wonders our fathers told us about? . . But now the Lord has abandoned us.” Judges 6:12-13 NIV. Gideon could not reconcile his current situation with God’s apparent absence. Ever felt that way? Jesus felt your pain when on the cross “He cried in a loud voice, ‘My God, my God, why have You forsaken Me?’” Matthew 27:46 NIV. (Please read Deuteronomy 4:31 NIV).
My prayer for you today is that you rest secure and unshakable in God’s care.