Divine Silence? Our Feeling of Abandonment

The Lovebox device and app is marketed to lonely people in need of encouragement. This device is a small Wi-Fi-connected box with a heart on the front. When the heart spins, it means someone has used the app to send an encouraging message or picture. The heart continues to spin until you lift the lid of the box and read the message or view the picture on the tiny screen inside—no doubt cheering you up!

Feeling discouraged, lonely, or abandoned is another natural emotion in response to the silence of God. To experience a situation in which God doesn’t speak when we expect makes us feel as if He’s distant and uncaring (v. 1). The Message paraphrase suggests it’s as if God is giving His people the silent treatment. To feel Him as absent is surely the loneliest feeling in the world!

The poetic imagery here describes being hopelessly surrounded by one’s enemies (vv. 2–4). In contrast to God’s silence, these foes are loud. The picture in verse 2 describes soldiers being mustered for battle. Words used by different translations to convey the noise include “growl,” “commotion,” and “uproar.” These enemies are doing everything they can to humiliate and destroy the nation of Israel. Since these are the people God cherishes, where is He? Some have suggested that the occasion for this psalm might be found in 2 Chronicles 20, when Moab, Ammon, and their allies invaded Judah in the days of King Jehoshaphat.

The psalmist prays for God to come to the rescue and win the victory (vv. 13–18). Though he feels abandoned, he knows God is faithful. These enemies need to learn that they cannot treat God’s people this way with impunity. They need to learn that God is God!

Pray With Us

Today we continue to support in prayer our faculty in the Communications department—Robert Gustafson, Rosalie de Rosset, Angela Brown, Brian Kammerzelt, and Jill White—as they are getting ready for the next school year at Moody.

BY Brad Baurain

Dr. Bradley Baurain is Professor and Program Head of TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) at Moody Bible Institute. Bradley has the unique privilege of holding a degree from four different universities (including Moody). He is the author of On Waiting Well. Bradley taught in China, Vietnam, the United States, and Canada. Bradley and his wife, Julia, have four children and reside in Northwest Indiana.