“When God is Silent” - Psalm 22 – Part II
The psalmist vividly describes his situation in the fifteenth verse. “My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my strength; you lay me in the dust of death.” In the next three verses, he further depicts the horrible scene of human and wild vultures encircling him as life ebbs out of him. They cannot wait to devour his corpse. Practically speaking, the psalmist is destitute. Although he cries out, God is silent as death approaches with the gleeful cheers of greedy spectators whose self-seeking ways prohibit them from helping him. Most unfortunately, even the “Helper of ages past” acquiesces this dilemma with His inexplicable silence and inertia.
In periods of God’s perceived silence, it is extremely important that we guard against resentment, anger and bitterness. During these times of spiritual drought, we dwell upon the cumulative string of past disappointments. We remember every harm, insult, hardship and failure that we ever experienced. We think of each time we assumed that God did not deliver us. We resent God for allowing those situations. To resent means to relive. When we resent people and past experiences, we relive them as if we were experiencing them for the very first time. Inevitably, resentment fueled by anger leads to bitterness possibly hatred. These attributes evolve into a cancer on one’s heart. Additionally, these emotions motivate thirst for vengeance toward those whom we suspected injured us. Eventually, we die a slow spiritual death as these toxic characteristics prevent us from enjoying eternal life.
Instead of dwelling upon negativity, we have the option of focusing upon faith and God’s faithfulness toward us. In each past experience, God transformed evil intended to harm us into a blessing empowering us to accomplish His will. We can choose to center our minds and hearts on the positive aspects embedded in every incident. Practically speaking, we learn to let go of unproductive and useless emotions. Through these experiences, God builds resilience within us. His silence is His mysterious and majestic method of enabling us with inner fortitude, elasticity and buoyancy to triumph over any adversity. Daily resiliency reenacts the resurrection.
The psalmist realizes that God has not been silent. Furthermore, he appreciates that Almighty God has not forsaken him nor has He abandoned the psalmist to his circumstances. “For he has not despised or disdained the suffering of the afflicted one; he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help.” As a matter of fact, the psalmist accepts that God has spoken forcefully in his situation. He just did not speak when the psalmist prefers.
The blessed seasons of Christmas and Easter remind us of the resilience and resurrection that Almighty God infuses into our lives. Our Lord resists the temptation of anger and punishment toward His accusers. He, like the psalmist, appeals in despair to the Holy Father for deliverance. To accomplish the plan of eternal salvation, God appears silent. In actuality, He busily instructed the angels regarding the details of the drama of the forthcoming resurrection. The darkness and silence, which surrounded the crucifixion, were an intermission on the grand cosmological stage. Behind the curtain, God rearranged the setting to ensure that the final scene would result in the deliverance of His Son and the salvation of humankind.
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