I am leaving on Monday to lead worship for Special Touch Ministries in the Berkshires. So I am going to move to posting only twice daily ( though I may pop in a few times with candid posts if I have connectivity at the Getaway). Please understand if I don’t get right back to comments. I will be working solely from my smartphone (Which truthfully is a bit smarter than I am).

It has been a big week, and this weekend going into next week promises to get even bigger. I am leaving on Monday to lead worship for Special Touch Ministries in the Berkshires. So I am going to move to posting only twice daily ( though I may pop in a few times with candid posts if I have connectivity at the Getaway). Please understand if I don’t get right back to comments. I will be working solely from my smartphone (Which truthfully is a bit smarter than I am).

Yet you brought me out of the womb;
    you made me trust in you, even at my mother’s breast.
¹⁰ From birth I was cast on you;
    from my mother’s womb you have been my God. Psalm 22 9,10

I did not grow up in a Christian home. My children did. They have grown up from infancy knowing about Jesus. Which experience is closer to your story? Do you wish it had been otherwise?

But I am a worm and not a man,
    scorned by everyone, despised by the people.
⁷ All who see me mock me;
    they hurl insults, shaking their heads.
⁸ “He trusts in the Lord,” they say,
    “let the Lord rescue him.
Let him deliver him,
    since he delights in him.” Psalm 22: 6-8

Do you see any positive sides to being viewed like this by other people?

Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One;
    you are the one Israel praises.^[c]
4 In you our ancestors put their trust;
    they trusted and you delivered them.
⁵ To you they cried out and were saved;
    in you they trusted and were not put to shame.Psalm 22:3-5

The generations before our Psalm writer endured incredible hardship in life. What do you think he means when he says “they trusted and were not put to shame?”

Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One;
    you are the one Israel praises.^[c]
4 In you our ancestors put their trust;
    they trusted and you delivered them.
⁵ To you they cried out and were saved;
    in you they trusted and were not put to shame. Psalm 22:3-5

If our ancestors had to cry out to God in order to be saved it stands to reason so must we. What does crying out to God look like in your situation?

Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One;
    you are the one Israel praises.^[c]
4 In you our ancestors put their trust;
    they trusted and you delivered them.
⁵ To you they cried out and were saved;
    in you they trusted and were not put to shame. Psalm 22:3-5

Is it enough that our ancestors were Christians? Does that give us an in with God?

Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One;
    you are the one Israel praises.^[c]
4 In you our ancestors put their trust;
    they trusted and you delivered them.
⁵ To you they cried out and were saved;
    in you they trusted and were not put to shame. Psalm 22:3-5

What has changed so much that today in America we think that God is not enthroned as the Holy One?

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
    Why are you so far from saving me,
    so far from my cries of anguish?
² My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer,
    by night, but I find no rest. 

Psalm 22:1,2

What advice would you give to someone who feels forsaken by God?