I have a bible with Charles Spurgeon commentaries in the footnotes. Yesterday I happened across his thoughts on Psalm 22. In the passage the compiler of my bible chose to include, Spurgeon takes it wholly as a Psalm about Christ. He says:
“Something in these words of our Savior is calculated to benefit us. When we behold human suffering, it afflicts and appalls us; but the sufferings of our Savior, while they move us to grief, have about them something sweet and full of consolation. Even here, in this black spot of grief, we find our heaven while gazing at the cross. Though a frightful sight it makes the Christian glad and joyous. Though we lament the cause, we rejoice in the consequences. With crime we always associate anger so that when Christ died and became our substitute, he became, for a time, the victim of his Father's righteous wrath, for our sins had been imputed to him in order that his righteousness might be imputed to us. It was necessary that he should feel the loss of his Father's smile – for the condemned in hell must have tasted of that bitterness – and therefore the Father closed the eyes of his love, put the hand of justice before the smile of his face, and left his Son to cry out these bitter words.”
The words Spurgeon is talking about in Psalm 22? “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?” It got me thinking about Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane, as He begged for the cup to pass from Him. But it didn’t. And the heart-cry off the cross (and from Psalm 22) dragged into silence and darkness and death…
Have you had moments when your cries to our Father fell into a deathly silence, and nothing seemed to happen?
Jesus is ever and always more than you or I. He is God as well as man, and we must be careful drawing comparisons. But, we are also told to emulate our Savior and look to Him in all things for our example. And I do think we can find a “calculated benefit” in dwelling on this.
There are times in our lives when disaster strikes. Or maybe it’s an unanswered problem in the family. Or perhaps it’s a sin that keeps pressing against the walls of your soul, furious to break in. Perhaps it’s the darkness of depression, or an old sorrow that saps at your joy even in the happy days. You may have a longing, good and true and godly, that has remained unfulfilled for years. Maybe it’s all of those at once, and more. We all have times we stand in the dark and beg for God to save us. Sometimes the light springs in at once, and we feel His presence as he answers and relieves our suffering souls.
But sometimes no answer seems to come.
Sometimes for years no answer seems to come.
Sometimes His saints die in the suffering without an answer we can see.
We all have stories of these moments, either us or things we’ve seen. History is replete with plagues and wars and persecutions and saints crying for deliverance in the very midst of destruction. What do we do when we are in these times ourselves? When we watch others walking through them? I don’t have all the answers, that I certainly know, I don’t really have any answers. But consider this.
Jesus’ prayers seemed to go unanswered and all to be desertion and despair and destruction. His prayers were followed by a darkness so deep the sun literally went out.
Until three days later.
And upon that morning three days later, we find all of creation in an upheaval of joy, and death itself undone, and all that is good suddenly and incredibly written in blazing letters in an empty tomb. Our hope springs from His unanswered prayers. The best, the very best thing on this earth, Christ’s substitutionary death to grant us peace forever, sprang from days of a darkness so deep none of us can even comprehend it.
None of us know the end of our story.
Except for what Christ granted us when He accepted His Father’s will and went on in the unanswered prayers. If we love Jesus we know the true end is “they lived happily ever after.” That is true no matter what comes and goes, no matter what remains unfulfilled, no matter what your story looks like right now. Even if you can’t even see your own feet in the dark. If you love Jesus, all will be right in the end.
Through history we have the privilege of seeing some of the times unanswered prayers have been used to bring some of the best of things. John Bunyan, in prison for twelve years… How often and fervently do you think he, and his family, and his church, prayed for his release? And yet while he was there he wrote a book that (it can be argued) has influenced the world for Christ more than any other except the Bible. If those prayers had been answered, would we have Pilgrim’s Progress? The Hiding Place is another; countless Christians have been encouraged and strengthened through Corrie Ten Boom’s story, because it is a walk by faith through a darkness deeper than most of us can even imagine. Nate Saint and his story, an inspiration to so many… In fact martyrs sparked the fuel for reformation; the church is literally built upon their ashes. And with each story of a faith that held firm through the dark, we can trace lines to those they touched, people saved from eternal fire or inspired to commit their lives to save others.
Sometimes our prayers land in silence. Sometimes the dark doesn’t lighten. Sometimes when we beg for something good the answer is “No.”
But walk by faith, dear ones. Remember we are held to the end. Remember what we see is not all that is. Remember we cannot see all of our stories. But God can. When He promised us all good things as we follow Him, that doesn’t mean sunshine and rainbows. It’s a deeper good. A good that cracks stone and starts death working backwards.
He makes us good. He uses us for good. He is shaping and creating and building something beautiful out of you. Don’t balk at the work. Don’t complain when the building isn’t what you wanted. You might have wanted a cottage when He is building a palace[1]. Trust in the love that died in darkness and unanswered prayers, for you. End every prayer like Jesus, “Not my will but Yours be done.” And keep walking in that kind of faith. Climb the Hill Difficulty and take joy in the Palace Beautifuls, and do what needs done right now in the moment you’re in.
That is where faith is built. When you pray Christ’s prayer in your closet, then walk out and do what needs done. Trusting. Loving. Working for His kingdom where He has you right now.
Pray unceasing. Rejoice always. Keep to the narrow path. And remember you are beloved and held. Good things are happening.
[1]“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on: you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently he starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of — throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.” -C.S. Lewis