https://odb.org/2026/03/14/when-there-are-no-answers
Psalm 22:1-11 NIV 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. 3 Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One; you are the one Israel praises. 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. 6 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.’ 9 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. 11 Do not be far from me, for trouble is near and there is no one to help.
Lorna’s childhood years were not easy, leaving her with difficult memories to process. As an adult she became the carer for her husband who has long-term health issues, until a freak accident left her virtually bed-ridden, in tremendous pain and unable to get out. She tries to remain positive, but at times she cries out, “Why, Lord?” and “Where are You?” In Psalm 22, the psalmist David expresses his confusion and distress in total honesty: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me?” (v. 1). There is no hiding, no religious politeness; just the reality of raw questions borne out of suffering. (Adrian Smith, Our Daily Bread 14th March 2026)
It’s difficult to imagine a life that is constantly challenging at differing stages. A tough childhood, an arduous marriage and later being bed-ridden and needed to be cared for. Yet even a cancer-striken life with long periods of time spent on treatment and recovery may invite questions like why me? Why are we not like that person who lives what appears to be a carefree life, travelling and seeing the world? Or that person joyfully serving God in church as an usherer or musician? Or sometimes we wish we could teleport back to our teens when life was much less complicated, when we don’t need to bring the bacon home or put food on the table.
There are no easy answers here. Even David, for all his glorious victories for God, struggle when faced with such difficult times. Like when his own son wanted to take his life to take over his throne. So he cries out – my God, my God, why have You forsaken me? Psalm 21:1 – to which our Lord Jesus Christ copied and similarly cried out when He was about to give up His ghost for the sake of mankind, for your sins and mine.
My answer and it may well not be a good one to you for what you may personally be or have been facing – in my view, we each have our own lane to run in this race of faith. Salvation is a free gift in the sense we can’t work towards it and yet we are to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. In other words, after we are saved, there is work to be done for God as we are to present our lives as a living sacrifice, and faith without works is dead. Thus we all run our own race and we have our own finish line. We store up our own riches in heaven. We take the talent God gives us and multiply it to the best of our ability. We just don’t keep it hidden in the ground but use it for the glory of God.
If we have it tougher compared to our own brother or sister in our family or that brother in church, then we have it tougher. God will judge us accordingly. There is no judgement on what our life was or is, except our response to God. No question of our suffering is fair or tough or unfair as it is our response that counts. Job suffered a lot but in the end, he prevailed because he kept himself pure. If we have it tougher, we still need to prevail and keep ourselves pure before God. I recently heard a very apt joke presented by Douglas Lim. He said Malaysian Chinese are resilient because our traditional game is mahjong. We play on no matter what tiles (or cards) life deals us. We play on and see how it goes. What to do? We cannot reshuffle the tiles because ours were bad.
We cannot choose the life God gives us, the era we are born into or the family or country we grow up in or our race or social station. But we could choose our response. We could choose what to make the hand life dealt us. We we could choose how to respond to God. We could choose to accept Hi calling, His plans and purposes. Respond in faith and in full trust, believing that the LORD our God is gracious and fair. We will one day see the light – if not in this life, then certainly in our life eternal! Amen!
Ronnie's Thoughts 