My God, Why Have You Forsaken Me?

This psalm begins where depression often begins: with the feeling that God has gone, that He does not hear, that help is far away. What is remarkable is that this is Scripture. God preserved these words as sacred — the words of a sufferer who felt abandoned by God. That means God is not offended by this prayer. He is not embarrassed by your despair. He included these feelings in His own book. Jesus quoted this psalm from the cross (Matthew 27:46) — the most God-forsaken moment in history — which means He has entered this feeling from the inside. Your sense of abandonment does not mean you are abandoned. It means you are human, and you are in company with the Psalmist, with Jesus Himself, and with every person of faith who has walked through the darkness and written about it honestly. You are allowed to feel this.