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The Prayer of Someone in Exile
Psalm 43
Good News Translation (GNT)
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1 O God, declare me innocent, and defend
my cause against the ungodly; deliver me
from lying and evil people!
2 You are my protector; why have
you abandoned me? Why must I go on
suffering from the cruelty of my enemies?
3 Send your light and your truth; may they lead
me and bring me back to Zion, your sacred
hill,[a] and to your Temple, where you live.
4 Then I will go to your altar, O God; you are the
source of my happiness. I will play my harp
and sing praise to you, O God, my God.
5 Why am I so sad? Why am I so troubled?
I will put my hope in God, and once again I
will praise him, my savior and my God.
Footnotes
Psalm 43:3
See psalm 2.6.
"On Zion,[a] my sacred hill," he says,
"I have installed my king."
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Commentary taken from BRF New Daylight
writen by Ann Lewin
'The Prayer of Someone in Exile'
The psalms sometimes move quite quickly from expressing confidence in God to complaining about apparent abandonment.
We don't know what provoked this particular outburst: it could have been any one of the many challenges the Hebrew people were faced with during their long history.
On the other hand, the enemy may not have been an external force at all.
Sometimes the enemy lies within, an expression of our 'glass half-empty' - or in some cases completely empty - attitude to life.
It is very easy when we feel overwhelmed by whatever is challenging us to feel that there is nothing worth living for.
During the worst times of the Covid pandemic, people were encouraged to put a symbol of a rainbow in their windows in support for the NHS.
They were also a reminder that God had once put a rainbow in the sky as a sign of hope for the future.
Deep down, the psalmist knew where the answer to his feeling of distress would come from.
Although he felt abandoned, he knew that God's light and truth could bring him out of his pit of depression or self-pity or whatever was getting to him, and bring him to a state where he could again worship and praise God.
He told himself, as he had done at the end of Psalm 42, to hope and trust in God, who is the one who can help.
Like learning to practise the presence of God, learning to trust God is an act of will.
Our prayer may not make any difference to our outward circumstances, but it will change our mindset and strengthen our hope.
Lord, when we feel abandoned and helpless, strengthen us to hope and trust in you. Amen
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