Forgotten

Have you ever been forgotten?

Not lost. Not misplaced. Forgotten. I have been forgotten. When I was 12 or 13 years old, I was forgotten at home, all alone. On a Sunday morning where my parents both served at church, they drove separately and assumed the other had taken me. Keep in mind that it wasn’t a short drive to come back and get me either; my family drove 45 minutes away to get to church.

The problem for me wasn’t apparent until I woke up with a big Disney Princess morning stretch, sun shining, birds singing. Normally, as I walked downstairs to get breakfast, I could hear a hair dryer, music, coffee maker, but not a sound greeted me that day. Silence. I walked to my parents’ room, “Mom? Dad?” Silence. I looked down the basement stairs though darkness stared me back, “Mom? Dad?” Silence. Last, I looked in the garage, surely one of their two cars is just waiting in the garage to take me with them. Both cars gone. No sisters in their rooms. No parents there to answer. I was forgotten.

Our brother David is intimately acquainted with this feeling of forgotten-ness. If you recall, the prophet and judge Samuel invited David’s father Jesse and his brothers, all SEVEN of them, to consecrate themselves and join him in sacrificing to the Lord. David wasn’t told to consecrate himself. But he was left tending the sheep.

Maybe you can’t sympathize with this forgotten-ness, but each of us can sympathize with rejection. Whether on a basketball court, in a job interview, a prom-posal, audition or something of the like, we all know that sinking feeling of, “Maybe I just wasn’t good enough.” David’s got your back their too! He went through a lot of stuff.

Turn with me to Psalm 13. Psalm 13, we are going to just look at the first two verses for now.

In Psalm 13:1-2, he says:

Psalm 13:1–2 ESV

How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?

David felt forgotten. David felt rejected. “The Man after God’s Own Heart”. Forgotten.

In Hebrew literature, and literature in general, we know that a repeated phrase denotes emphasis. David says, HOW LONG? Four times. There are at least 6 other times that this phrase How Long? is used in the Psalms, but this instance is the most that the phase is used in a single text. He is wrestling: “Has God left me? Will He ever come back to me? What did I do that my enemies should rejoice in victory? If I hear silence, it means that God has hidden His face and rejected me.”

He is pleading, longing, begging for an answer from our God.

Next, he turns to requesting from God, in the next two verses 3-4 he says:

Psalm 13:3–4 ESV

Consider and answer me, O Lord my God; light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death, lest my enemy say, “I have prevailed over him,” lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken.

Bring me back to the front of your mind, God! Answer me! We can see this desperation within David’s tone. As my grandpa would say, he is beat.

The Old Testament draws out this idea of dimness of the eyes, that the hope or brightness that once was there is no longer. We see it in places like Job 17:7 where Job says

Job 17:7 ESV

My eye has grown dim from vexation, and all my members are like a shadow.

As we know, Job was well-acquainted with grief and sorrow just as David. And David here contrasts and gives an ultimatum that if his eyes are not brightened he will “sleep the sleep of death”.

He is afraid that his enemies will be able to rejoice in his death and in his defeat, as he says I am shaken.

Before looking at these next verses, let’s take a minute. Reflect back on these feelings like Job, like David. Remember a time in your life when you felt utterly defeated, like you couldn’t possibly go on. Let’s remember now. Take a minute now.

How did that minute make you feel? Anxious? Uneasy? It might feel like there’s a pit in your stomach when you remember times of despair, times without hope.

Even in his darkest, our brother David thirsted for every ounce of hope that he could drink. Look at the next two verses, verses 5-6 Psalm 13:5-6

Psalm 13:5–6 ESV

But I have trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord, because he has dealt bountifully with me.

What?! Isn’t this the same guy who was just pleading with God to answer him in the previous verses?! Now he says, “I will sing to the Lord, because He has dealt bountifully with me.” In remembering those times of despair, I don’t know about you, but I hardly remember my heart’s natural response defaulting to “Wow, look at how many blessings God has given me. I sure feel like singing about it.” No, our flesh wrestles with us. It wants us to look inwardly, not outwardly and certainly not upwardly.

Now that Christ has come, lived, died, risen, and ascended to the right hand of God, we are secure with Christ as we suffer like He did. We then must trust in God’s steadfast love, rejoice in our salvation, and sing to the Lord as we wait for the Lord in our sufferings. We have been promised suffering, and Peter has a similar response to David’s: 1 Peter 4:12–19

1 Peter 4:12–19 ESV

Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. But let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler. Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name. For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God? And “If the righteous is scarcely saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?” Therefore let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good.

Though it is God’s will that we suffer for a short while, we can entrust our souls to our faithful Creator, trust in His steadfast love. He has dealt bountifully with us. We are not rejected. We are not forever forgotten. Just as I was not forever forgotten. The phone promptly rang after I checked the empty garage with my mom apologizing profusely; she was probably more in distress than I was! My grandma swung by on the way to church and picked me up as my parents and everyone at church showed me that steadfast love and bountiful grace.

No devotion is quite as sweet without a quote from A.W. Tozer:

To accept Christ is to know the meaning of the words “as he is, so are we in this world.” We accept his friends as our friends, his enemies as our enemies, his ways as our ways, his rejection as our rejection, his cross as our cross, his life as our life, and his future as our future.

A. W. Tozer