Never Forsaken
Psalm 9:10 “Those who know your name will trust in you, for you, LORD, have never forsaken those who seek you” (NIV).
Observation: The psalmist began by declaring that he will praise God with all his heart and testify of His wonders. He had seen God cause his enemies to stumble and turn back, which led to his declaration that the Lord reigns forever. It is in that reigning that God has established His throne for judgment, leading to this confident declaration: “He will judge the world in righteousness; he will govern the peoples with justice” (Ps. 9:8). He went on to say that those who trust in the Lord have never been forsaken by Him.
Application: O psalmist, are you sure about that last statement? My life has at times seemed littered with the detritus of forsakenness. I have gone through seasons when the thing I had clung to crumbled within my grasp, leaving me feeling lonely and forlorn in the midst of life’s disintegration. It is one thing to piously look at the mess of someone else’s life and ascribe it to some shortcoming in their walk with God, but in this view our vision is skewed, our assumptions fleshly, at best. The person who has lost employment (or spouse or health or . . .) may well mope in apparent forsakenness. But what then shall we make of countless believers around the globe who have never enjoyed the things whose loss we mourn, yet still exude the radiance of His presence?
The hard reality is, it is the goodness of God to confront us with loss so as to test in what, more properly in whom, we are trusting. How else are we to learn about ourselves the thing that He already knows so well? Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things.” What today’s verse is saying is that if our circumstances lead us to forlornness, it is because we have been trusting in someone or something other than God.
Jesus put it this way in John 16:33, “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” As the psalmist so rightly says in 9:7–8, the Lord does indeed reign; He will judge the world in righteousness. “He is a stronghold in times of trouble” (v. 9). In the midst of trouble, it is my choice to run into His protective stronghold trusting His provision of all I truly need, or to mourn on the pile of life’s rubble.
Prayer: Lord Jesus, as tough as it is to admit sometimes, I am grateful for those times when I have been confronted with forsakenness. Thank You for reminding me to surrender, then to call upon You. Cause me in my worst moments of apparent forsakenness to choose to go deeper into You.
