Psalm 44

I have heard it said that the Psalter addresses nearly every human emotion that exists. There are Psalms that describe feelings of joy, pain, confusion, grief, adoration, worship, discouragement, regret, thankfulness, fear, etc. The range of the Psalms is very wide, and we can expect great blessings from reading and meditating daily upon the truths they express.

For instance, have you ever felt confused and pained by God’s providence in your life? My Bible reading plan brought me yesterday to Psalm 44, which begins with a brief history of God’s faithful care for His people. The author then recounts some present affliction - where it seems as though God has rejected, disgraced, and not protected His people. Finally, the writer states the crux of the matter and the reason why God’s people feel perplexed:

“All this has come upon us,
though we have not forgotten you,
and we have not been false to your covenant.
Our heart has not turned back,
nor have our steps departed from your way;
yet you have broken us in the place of jackals
and covered us with the shadow of death.
If we had forgotten the name of our God
or spread out our hands to a foreign god,
would not God discover this?
For he knows the secrets of the heart.
Yet for your sake we are killed all the day long;
we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

There are times in a believer’s life when afflictions arise, and they can’t be directly connected to sin. No one is sinless; we know that from nearly every page of the Bible. But bad events in our lives are not always tied to discipline. Many times the reason behind a painful providence will remain mysterious until we are in Heaven, at which time we probably won’t care anymore.

This passage from Psalm 44 affirms that tragedies can happen even if we haven’t turned our hearts away from God or forgotten Him or moved toward worshipping other gods. We must seek to trust God, even when it hurts. And we are encouraged to pray for help continually, as the last line of this Psalm demonstrates:

“Rise up; come to our help! Redeem us for the sake of your steadfast love!”

God will not forget or ignore such a prayer.