Always Before Me!
I have set the LORD always before me: because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.
Psalm 16:8
Psalm 22:1,14-24; 16:8-11
The title — borrowed for this post — of Christian Light’s lesson for Easter Sunday is good for me.
I’ve been struggling of late with a sense of abandonment. Oh, I know intellectually that I have not been abandoned. But that knowledge has had quite a wild battle at times with feelings of abandonment.
But this title gives me some perspective and sense of proportion which I’d forgotten.
The Son suffered.
Wow.
So where is my sense of proportion and perspective when I suffer?
And where is my faith when I feel abandoned?
Might my feeling of abandonment be indicative of my having forgotten God too much?
Where is God’s praise from me?
Do I keep the Lord before me? How? When? Why?
What makes my heart glad?
Will I rest in hope?
Where am I in relationship to the path of life?
In His presence is fullness of joy!
“But be not thou far from me, O LORD: O my strength, haste thee to help me” (Psalm 22:19).
![[The Scriptures say in Psalm 22:24 -- Neither hath he hid his face]](/pantinghart/wp-content/not-hid-his-face.jpg "God's Word says: Neither hath he hid his face (Psalm 22:24)")
from Psalm 22:24
Thanks, Mark. We understand your feelings of abandonment. Sometimes we struggle with that too. Thank God, Jesus understands our feelings. Hebrews 4:15: “For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the
feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.”
Speaking of feeling abandoned, please pray for what remains of the Esh family. Eleven of the singing Esh family was on the way from Kentucky to Iowa today, and most — if not all — were killed in a head-on collison. The driver of a semi went over the middle line and hit them. The dead include the parents, single daughters, a married son and his wife and their children. God be with the grieving. Jesus understands. Even when we feel abandoned.