Feeling Alone??

 

We’ve all struggled at times – with loss and grief, illness, financial difficulties, broken relationships and so much more. Often those moments of struggle turn slowly and painfully into days and weeks and months and years. We get tired. We get depressed. We want the pain to end.

We forget the promises of God. We cry out to Him and ask him how much He expects us to take. Or we just walk away or run away from Him, angry or hurt thinking that He has abandoned us. I know. I’ve done it too.

I was talking with someone recently who felt abandoned by God because of life circumstances. And who was feeling guilty for feeling that way. What could I say to encourage and support that individual trying to hold on to a wavering faith?

I thought of the words of Jesus on the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken Me?” (Matthew 27:46, King James Version) “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” (New Living Translation)

Jesus crying out to His Father? Why? He felt abandoned too, just like me and you. He felt like God had turned His back on His Son. So where was His Father? Why wasn’t He there?

But He was. He was in the darkness beside His Son Jesus. Aching to take Him off the cross. Aching to take away the pain. Aching to take Him down from the cross. Aching to let Him feel hope again. But God the Father couldn’t do it. If He had done those things and given Jesus hope, then there’d be no hope for us.

And then I thought about the walk to the cross. God was with His Son Jesus when He was trying to drag that heavy cross up the hill to Gethsemane. When Jesus collapsed on the way, His cross was given to someone else to carry. Jesus, beaten and tortured, could hardly lift His head, let alone His aching body to continue that death walk.

How did He get to the top of the hill? He didn’t call upon superhuman strength, which He could have done. Instead, He called upon His Father and His Father carried Him. And, I believe too that when Jesus called out and asked God why He had abandoned Him that He heard a quiet voice in the darkness surrounding the cross, “Remember, I will never leave You or forsake You. I haven’t abandoned You. I am carrying you, My Son.”

We are all God’s sons and daughters. We may not believe it. We may feel like we don’t deserve to be sons and daughters. We may not want to be sons and daughters. But we are. We may choose to leave Him. But no matter what we do He will never leave us or abandon us.