Do you feel deserted?

“And about the ninth hour, Jesus cried out in a loud voice, ‘Eli, Eli lama sabachthani?’ that is, ‘My God, my God why have you deserted me?” (Matthew 27: 46)

Delays, disappointments, obstacles, suffering and persecutions can cause extreme discouragement. We take comfort in the cry and prayer of Christ, ‘My God, my God why have you deserted me?” Even Jesus felt deserted under intense suffering. But we also must learn by his grim determination not to be discouraged, to drink the cup of suffering to the last drop. This attitude of firmness and steadfastness in face of overwhelming odds is itself victory. We learn this in the school of prayer, the school of Gethsemane. In Gethsemane, Christ prepared for what was to come in the following 24 hours. The time we spent in prayer in the morning prepares us for what is to come in the next 12 hours.

Crying out to God who is so near to us in prayer helps us to face all the odds that life throws on us during the day. “My God, my God why have you deserted me?” We can hear from God, “I have not deserted you. Look! I am with you always.”