Echoes From the Campfire

The weak, and those unwilling to make the struggle, soon resign their liberties for the protection of powerful men or paid allies; they begin by being protected, they end up by being subjected.”
              –Louis L’Amour  (A Man Called Noon)

    “The struggles of fools weary them, for they don’t know how to go to the city.”
              –Ecclesiastes 10:15(HCSB)
————————–
David is in the midst of great depression.  He may have composed that old ditty at this time, “nobody loves me, everybody hates me…”.  He was alone and undone.  There was no one to help him; even God seemed to have turned His back on David.  Yes, Psalm 22:1-10 (HCSB) is a pitiful scene of despair and no hope.

         1 – My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?  Why are You so far from my deliverance and from my words of groaning?
         2 – My God, I cry by day, but You do not answer, by night, yet I have no rest.
         3 – But You are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel.
         4 – Our fathers trusted in You; they trusted, and You rescued them.
         5 – They cried to You and were set free; they trusted in You and were not disgraced.
         6 – But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by men and despised by people.
         7 – Everyone who sees me mocks me; they sneer and shake their heads:
         8 – “He relies on the Lord; let Him rescue him; let the Lord deliver him, since He takes pleasure in him.”
         9 – You took me from the womb, making me secure while at my mother’s breast.
        10 – I was given over to You at birth; You have been my God from my mother’s womb.

David is crying out that God is not even there.  He is complaining that God helped his fathers, but that He is not listening to his pleas for help.  David has trusted in the Lord, but nothing seems to be happening.  People are mocking his faith and His God.
    David didn’t know he was penning the words that Christ that would speak from the Cross.  The sins of the world would soon make Him cry out to God, but seemingly God had abandoned Him also.  Where was God when Jesus was on the cross?  Try to imagine the agony, not just the physical pain of Jesus on the cross.  John Row said, “Here is comfort to ‘deserted’ souls.  Christ himself was deserted.  You may be beloved of God and not feel it.  Christ was.”  The “only begotten Son” was now deserted.  What was going through the mind of Jesus, all alone?
    Jesus “who for the joy that lay before Him endured a cross and despised the shame and has sat down at the right hand of God’s throne.” (Hebrews 12:2, HCSB)  He knew what was on the other side.  He knew that the death, hell, and the grave was no match for Him, but still, He was rejected, despised, depressed–alone.
    Perhaps you find yourself in that situation of being alone and depressed.  We all do to some extent, somewhere in life.  Perhaps we are not looking at our situation in the right perspective.  Often God has already given us the means for help and He waits to see if we use them.  The devil would try to get up to murmur and complain, to turn away from the help that is available.  Look at verse 10, how wonderful it is to serve and know God “at birth”!  That’s the purpose of baby dedication, to see the baby serving the Lord from birth, being given over to Him rather than the world.

         “What thou, my Lord, hast thou suffered was all for sinners’ gain;
          Mine, mine was the transgressions, but thine the deadly pain.
          Lo, here I fall, my Savior!  ‘Tis I deserve thy place;
          Look on me with thy favor, and grant to me thy grace.”
                  –Bernard of Clairvaux