"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer; and by night, but find no rest."
In all its pain, in all its despair, Psalm 22 is breathtakingly beautiful. It strikes a chord when tears well up in the throat, threatening to choke else they are released. When the weariness that you feel is all but paralysing. When your best intentions and fondest hopes fail, fall flat, come short.
"I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax; it is melted within my breast; my mouth is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaws; you lay me in the dust of death."
Empty.
Spent.
Broken.
Dissolved.
Parched.
Forsaken.
Verse 21b swoops in and gives me a bad case of whiplash.
The Psalmist celebrates having been heard, after such a trying time. And the remainder of the psalm is a call to praise and reverence.
But...
For every time God answers our prayers with great dramatic flair, there are surely ten times the response is understated, sometimes barely perceptible, if perceptible at all.
I wonder... is there a psalm that sits with that tension?
Lord knows many of us could come up with one.
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