BROADCASTS.com

I call out to the Lord. I pray to him for mercy. I pour out my problem to him. I tell him about my trouble. When I grow weak, you are watching over my life (Psalm 142:1-3a).

At some point, most children must wrestle with a sense of abandonment. This loss is felt when parents leave the room. As they return time after time, the child will grow confident that their leaving is not permanent. For some children this is a more difficult journey than others. And some children, mostly due to neglect and the withholding of love, struggle to trust anyone. As they grow up, they find it difficult to develop healthy attachments. Even into old age, they remain afraid of being abandoned.

Our psalm for today, touches on this matter of abandonment, being left alone, without human community. We can imagine this psalm on the lips of Jeremiah, cast into the well, then drawn out only to be imprisoned until the fall of Jerusalem. No effort is needed to hear this prayer welling up from the throat of Job, as he sat on his dung heap, bereft of every earthly comfort. We could include Jacob fleeing from his brother Esau, Joseph thrown into an Egyptian prison and Elijah running from Jezebel.

When we think of those unjustly accused who may have prayed this psalm, other people come to mind, such as Daniel in the lion\u2019s den and his three friends in the fiery furnace. We might include Hannah, surrounded by children not her own. And David fleeing from Saul and later from Absalom. Of course, many Christians today living in places of persecution understand the sentiments of this psalm.

If this lament is a fitting supplication for those in prison, then even John the Baptist is to be counted among those who may have prayed it and the Apostles Peter, Paul, and John. But most of all, and adding dignity to the rest, there is Christ our Lord, the Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, abandoned by His closest friends, betrayed by one of them and denied in public by another, finding His sole refuge in the Father.

Here is a lament of a person who has been faithful to God, but who feels oppressed and abandoned by the community of faith. Words and phrases such as \u201ccomplaint,\u201d \u201cmy spirit grows faint,\u201d \u201cno one is concerned for me,\u201d \u201cno one cares for me,\u201d \u201cdesperate need,\u201d \u201cset me free from prison\u201d haunt its verses.

Yet, throughout the song, there is one ray of light, God has not abandoned this singer. This is the one thing that holds despair at bay. \u201cWhen I grow weak, you are watching over my life\u201d (3); \u201cYou are my place of safety. You are everything I need in this life\u201d (5); \u201cSet me free so I can praise your name\u201d (7). This is one of the hall marks of the Christian faith: that God does not abandon us. Jesus\u2019 incarnation is the proof. It\u2019s a matter of faith to believe that God remains with us even if we cannot see or feel him.

This song speaks into our impersonal world. We work with, go to school with, live next door to, worship with people whom we hardly know. What burdens do they carry? Do they feel that the very breath of life is being sucked away by traps and snares? Do they feel that no one regards them, no one inquires after their well-being? Maybe some of you express those questions for yourself.

This psalmist expresses these fears of abandonment, and the ultimate fear of death, in this cry to God. He will be a refuge when all others fail. But more than a place to hide, God will also be our \u201cportion,\u201d that is, He will be the satisfaction of our lives. He will be everything we need in life. The trouble is we often need to lose the little refuges we cherish to know that God is still our ever-present refuge.

Let me finish with this question: has not the church been called to be a place of refuge in the land of the living? How can we know the presence of God if we are not that presence to each other? What ever church you are part of, get out the directory, look through it, pray through it. Who is God calling you to be present with so that they will know that God has not abandoned them?

The psalm-singer pleads for deliverance by God for one reason: to give thanks to the name of God (7); that once more the righteous will gather round in community. In the third and final expression of trust, the psalmist is confident that after God delivers, the righteous will gather round, and the psalm-singer will no longer feel abandoned and alone. Why not reach out to make that happen today?