Not Abandoned

“Those who know Your name trust in You because You have not abandoned those who seek You, Lord.” (Psalm 9:10)

There is no greater truth than the truth that those who know the Lord are never abandoned.

Some of life’s traumas can lead us to feel abandoned. The wicked prosper and seemingly get away with it. The oppressed suffer because of it. In the midst of such hurt people wonder where God is, and why He allows such occurrences.

When death comes to someone we love and we experience that awful ripping away of part of our hearts, we wonder where God is, and why He allowed that to happen. Especially when that hole in our lives seems to always be there, again we wonder.

As people grow older and sometimes harder to communicate with and some stop going to see them and mostly forget about them, we wonder.

When we stack up experience against truth and the truth does not seem to bear out the way we think it should, that is when we wonder where God is and why He allows evil to even exist.

Is there an answer to this question? The question has been around a long time.

Part of the answer in is knowing the Lord. To know the “name” of the Lord, as the psalmist writes, is to know His character. To know His character is to know His integrity. And to know His integrity is to know that He keeps His word. He has promised to never abandon or forsake us. Because we know His character and integrity, we trust Him, and we believe that when people seek the Lord they find Him. He is very “findable.”

It may seem sometimes that God has abandoned us, but that is because we have this idea that God should be subject to our every demand. We deny that, but the reality proves otherwise. What we need to recognize is that in every experience of life, there is something God wants us to learn. What we need to recognize is that if we expect God to eliminate all evil, that could even put ourselves at risk, because even in the best of us there may lurk at least a little bit of evil, so if God takes it all out, that could include us. To think otherwise would put us in the company of the arrogant.

Those who know the Lord are never abandoned. He is always with us, and walks with us through all of life’s experiences, teach us as we go.

Lord, We still find it difficult to comprehend, but even so we take our stand with You because we believe You never abandon us. Amen.