Enjoy Life, Enjoy God

MY GOD, MY GOD

August 6, 2010

The words that Jesus cries out on the cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" They were not original to Jesus, but to the Psalms.

 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning?
My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, but I find no rest.
- Psalm 22:1,2 TNIV

When Jesus died on the cross, among other things, he joined into the universal human chorus of anxiety, forsakenness, abandonment--a truth that, at times, nearly all of us have known. Yet the Psalm goes on: "They cried to you and were saved; in you they trusted and were not disappointed." (v. 5)

Jesus' cry, also, was not the last word. The last word began with an empty tomb, and then with a triumphant joy: "He is risen." And so he was. If you face a struggle, even the gnaw of abandonment, please, do not forget the last word, "Rejoice, he is risen!"
Joyfully,

Dale Patterson