Why, O LORD, do you stand far away? Why do you hide your- self in times of trouble? Psalms 10:1
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning? Psalms 22:1
When experiencing suffering, often the most painful and distressing part of all is the seeming disinterest of God. When life gets most difficult, it often seems that God is most distant. Trials, by their very nature, are hard to bear, but they can seem overwhelming if God is not present.
These verses show us that there is a kind of praying that gives expression to the deep troubling questions of the heart. There is, of course, a sort of refined pious way of praying that never addresses God in this way. But the end result of such prayers is an endless circling of the mind, collecting unbelieving debris as it makes its rounds in the heart. Much better to release our doubts and questions to God. In releasing them they are quickly joined to faith as they take upward flight to God! Releasing them to God is an act of faith in itself. Does the fact that Jesus, himself, prayed this way encourage you to follow his example? (Matt 27:46) What do we learn from his holy “questioning prayer”? How does Christ’s redemption, and the fruit that resulted from it, shine hope for us as we hear his despairing cry of “Why”?