Psalm 22 opens with the well known line echoed in the words of Jesus on the cross – “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” It then continues in the same vein through the rest of the first and second verse.

Verses 3-5 offer a counter thought in that they talk about how the Psalmist’s ancestors put their faith in God. After those verses it swings back to David’s anguish and then again to God’s closeness, using motherly language of God in verses 9-10. And then the pendulum swings again. It closes out with a lunch chunk of the Psalm being devoted to praise of God.

The Psalm is a poetic wrestle between what David feels internally and what he knows to be true of God. We all go through it. We all go through those times when life is pushing against us – I certainly do. It comes out for me when I look around the world.

I serve an organisation that supports those involved in the work of poverty alleviation and justice in the developing world. So whilst I have those same internal struggles from time to time the problem can also feel evident in the struggles in the world. There are those times when the work can seem hopeless, like it’s not achieving anything and God has forsaken some places.

Contrasting those internal struggles and those places in the world where trying to make a difference seems hopeless is the evidence that says there is hope, that all is not lost and that, to use a tired cliche, there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

In the long run injustice never wins. In the long game of life there is always hope, always something over the horizon or at the top of the valley where we just need to keep climbing no matter how brutal and grueling that struggle may be.

You see, I don’t trust my perspective enough in those low times and I encourage that wrestle between how I feel and what I know to be true. Hopefully, just as with the Psalmist, the outcome of that wrestle will always be the prevalence of the external truth that there is something else beyond me or beyond the hopeless circumstances I may be looking at around the world. I may not experience it immediately but it’s there. There is hope. There is light amidst the darkness and in spite of it. There is a hope in a world where things often seem hopeless. Currently good and evil still wrestle, but good has won.

May we be people who hold onto the truth of light and hope even when the despair and the struggle seem to be overpowering. May we be people who allow that wrestle in both our internal struggles and the struggles we see in the world. In the way we live may we be examples of the external truth of hope and light because after Jesus cried out just before his death “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me” came the resurrection. Light, truth, hope and justice broke forth – the Kingdom of God has drawn near.

Read more of my reflections on the Psalms.

Here’s why I’m walking this journey through the Psalms.