Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.
Is your God sometimes missing in action?
Psalm 10 asks,
Why do you stand far off, Lord?
Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble? (v 1).
The psalmist explains why he thinks God has gone missing. Listen to his evidence.
– The wicked are arrogant and violent (v 2). Think Mexican drug cartels, American school shootings, or war in Ukraine. Where is God in these?
– More evidence? World leaders have no room for God in their thoughts (v 4). Trump and Putin and Xi Jinping? Lots of thoughts, but not about God.
– A third evidence for God’s absence is that he isn’t helping the poor and weak (v 9). The strong and powerful of earth don’t care if the homeless live under bridges, if drug addicts haunt the inner city, and immigrants are abused, exploited, and deported. Does God also ignore the needy?
– The wicked say, “God doesn’t notice, he doesn’t care.” To them, life is a fight for survival where the strong win, the weak lose, and we move on to the next conquest. God doesn’t intervene. Does he even care?
Question: How does the psalmist respond when God goes missing?
Answer: He prays to the absent one. God may be missing but he’s still listening.
Let’s pray.
Arise, Lord. Lift up your hand, O God,
do not forget the helpless (v 12).
See the trouble of the afflicted;
consider their grief and take it in hand (v 14).
When we are tired, depressed, sick, or lonely, we feel you’ve forgotten us. When cancer stalks those we love, when our lives feel short and empty, where are you, God?
When evil rulers oppress with tariffs, expel immigrants and enrich themselves with cryptocurrency, where is your justice? When war is a way of life, when drugs are plentiful and jobs are scarce, you surprise us by not righting these wrongs.
And yet . . . we believe you hear us. You listen to our hearts, you attend to our prayers, you encourage our faithfulness, you do see the poor and needy (v 17).
We invite you to act like God, to judge the wicked and to ease our pain, to answer our prayers and heal those we love.
O God, don’t be absent from us longer than we can stand. Come near. Let us feel your presence. Comfort us with kind words. Treat us gently. Make us joyful in our relationship with you.
Don’t be a God who is missing in action.
Amen.
I’m Daniel, on the channel “Pray with Me”.
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