“Well Done, Good and Faithful”

I have felt forsaken by God. I hesitate to say, “We’ve all felt that way at times,” because maybe you haven’t. But if you ever have, you know the feeling of the shadows pressing in around your mind and heart as you cry out asking God to do… something, anything to let you know that he hears you and is working on your problem. His silence can be as oppressive as the darkness that drove you to prayer in the first place.

I have felt forsaken by God recently. There have been some rough days over the past year, even some in the past week, and on the darkest of those days I’ve wept aloud, “How can this ever get better?” I don’t know what hell is like, but if this is even just a hint of how it feels, then descriptions like, “Weeping and gnashing of teeth” and “their worm never dies” are definitely appropriate descriptions.

In those dark times, all I really can hang on to is the hope that it will come to an end somehow. Admittedly, I’ve had the despairing thought that the only real hope is for it end in death, so that I can go to God’s home and rest, and finally he’ll speak to me, and he’ll say, “You persevered, you walked through the valley of the shadow of death, now here you are. Well done, good and faithful servant.”

Except that, in that darkness, even that offers little comfort. Because I can’t imagine him saying that. He has no reason to. “Well done?” What have I done well? I can list for you all my failures, all my sub-par performances, all my half-hearted attempts. “Good and faithful?” I’m not good. I’m wicked. I’m not faithful. I break promises and drop the ball again and again and again. “Servant?” Doesn’t that imply some kind of willingness?

So here’s the truth that I really need to hear, and you do too if you know this feeling: I am not forsaken by God, you are not forsaken by God, no one alive has been forsaken by God. Jesus was. What I experience that feels like God forsaking me doesn’t even come close to what Jesus experienced. And it’s an experience he knew he was going to have. It’s no accident that he quoted Psalm 22 to describe his anguish; that whole psalm gives voice to Jesus’ suffering. It wasn’t a spur of the moment, “Hey, this psalm relates really well to what I’m feeling right now!” As a boy, Jesus would have memorized this psalm, and as the God who authored it, in his divine knowledge he knew full well it was his voice echoing out of the past.
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And here’s the point of all of that: Jesus knew he was going to be forsaken by God instead of us, and he went anyway. He knew he was going to be crushed by the overwhelming wrath of God, and the deafening silence that goes way beyond a lack of tangible communication from him. But he wouldn’t let that deter him, because he had a hope that was brighter than that darkness he had to walk through – the joy of knowing that once he did, he would get to be with us. He would have us with him in heaven.

See, that’s the hope that’s brighter than the shadows of my dark days. My Jesus knows how it feels to be forsaken by God. He knows what I’m feeling when I think God has forsaken me. He carried that sorrow, and he carries me. All the way home. To his home. And it is his, because he is the good and faithful servant. He’s the one who did all things well. So it’s okay. I’m not alone in the valley of the shadow of death. He knows the way through it, and he’ll take me through it, to a good end.

Andrew Peterson’s newest EP is called Resurrection Letters: Prologue. It’s a short collection of music reflecting on the darkest day in history, when the Son of God and Creator of the universe was given up as a sacrifice for sin. This is one of a series of devotions inspired by these songs. Check out the song at the end of this post, and if you like it, pick up the album. Resurrection Letters: Vol. 1 will celebrate the victory of Easter, and is released March 30, 2018. For some thoughts on this song from Andrew himself, check out this post.

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