Abandoned by God

If we are feeling abandoned, we must first make sure that we are not forcing God’s hand.

• Psalms 139:23-24 HCSB Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my concerns. See if there is any offensive way in me; lead me in the everlasting way.

God’s patience can end. If we insist on keeping to our sinful ways, God can give up on us and become our enemy.

• Genesis 6:11-13 HCSB Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight, and the earth was filled with violence. God saw how corrupt the earth was, for all flesh had corrupted its way on the earth. Then God said to Noah, "I have decided to put an end to all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence because of them; therefore I am going to destroy them along with the earth.
• Romans 1:18-31 HCSB For God's wrath is revealed from heaven against all godlessness and unrighteousness of people who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth, since what can be known about God is evident among them, because God has shown it to them. From the creation of the world His invisible attributes, that is, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what He has made. As a result, people are without excuse. For though they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God or show gratitude. Instead, their thinking became nonsense, and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man, birds, four-footed animals, and reptiles. Therefore God delivered them over in the cravings of their hearts to sexual impurity, so that their bodies were degraded among themselves. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served something created instead of the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. This is why God delivered them over to degrading passions. For even their females exchanged natural sexual intercourse for what is unnatural. The males in the same way also left natural sexual intercourse with females and were inflamed in their lust for one another. Males committed shameless acts with males and received in their own persons the appropriate penalty for their perversion. And because they did not think it worthwhile to have God in their knowledge, God delivered them over to a worthless mind to do what is morally wrong. They are filled with all unrighteousness, evil, greed, and wickedness. They are full of envy, murder, disputes, deceit, and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, arrogant, proud, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, and unmerciful.

The people of Israel kept insisting on their own way and reaped the worst consequence possible – abandonment by God.

• Lamentations 1:1 HCSB How she sits alone, the city once crowded with people! She who was great among the nations has become like a widow. The princess among the provinces has become a slave.

The Israelites were counting on their allies to save them but soon realized that human help is completely insufficient when God has abandoned you. In turn, they were forced to abandon their cities with all their fineries. All the things they had counted on to save them were left behind.

• Jeremiah 4:29-31 HCSB Every city flees at the sound of the horseman and the archer. They enter the thickets and climb among the rocks. Every city is abandoned; no inhabitant is left. And you devastated one, what are you doing that you dress yourself in scarlet, that you adorn yourself with gold jewelry, that you enlarge your eyes with paint? You beautify yourself for nothing. Your lovers reject you; they want to take your life. I hear a cry like a woman in labor, a cry of anguish like one bearing her first child. The cry of Daughter Zion gasping for breath, stretching out her hands: Woe is me, for my life is weary because of the murderers!

However, feelings of spiritual abandonment do not always reflect the truth of the situation. Moses spent 40 years in the desert as a shepherd, an occupation that his Egyptian upbringing would have taught him to despise. He could have felt that God had abandoned him, put him on a shelf. But the fact was Moses was the one who had gotten ahead of God and done things his own way. As a result, he was dealing with the consequences.

• Exodus 2:11-15 HCSB Years later, after Moses had grown up, he went out to his own people and observed their forced labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his people. Looking all around and seeing no one, he struck the Egyptian dead and hid him in the sand. The next day he went out and saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one in the wrong, "Why are you attacking your neighbor?" "Who made you a leader and judge over us?" the man replied. "Are you planning to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?" Then Moses became afraid and thought: What I did is certainly known. When Pharaoh heard about this, he tried to kill Moses. But Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in the land of Midian, and sat down by a well.

Moses met a nice girl, settled down and had a family, but we get a glimpse of how he felt inside when we see what he named his son.

• Exodus 2:21-22 HCSB Moses agreed to stay with the man, and he gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses in marriage. She gave birth to a son whom he named Gershom, for he said, "I have become a stranger in a foreign land."

At first Moses felt abandoned by God, left to rot as a stranger in a foreign land, but the truth was that God was deeply concerned about the whole situation and had a plan.

• Exodus 2:23-24 HCSB After a long time, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned because of their difficult labor, and they cried out; and their cry for help ascended to God because of the difficult labor. So God heard their groaning, and He remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Jesus knows what it feels like to feel abandoned by His loved ones and even the Father. He experienced the same feelings when He came and lived among us.

• John 16:32 HCSB Look: An hour is coming, and has come, when each of you will be scattered to his own home, and you will leave Me alone. Yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me.
• Psalms 22:1 HCSB For the choir director: according to "The Deer of the Dawn." A Davidic psalm. My God, my God, why have You forsaken me? Why are You so far from my deliverance and from my words of groaning?
• Matthew 27:46 HCSB At about three in the afternoon Jesus cried out with a loud voice, "Elí, Elí, lemá sabachtháni?" that is, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?"

Note: Even in His extreme distress and when He felt abandoned by God, the Master still quoted Scripture. We cannot rely on our feelings. Feelings are fickle. Feelings do not always reflect the truth. We must depend entirely on the Word of God.

Because we have a high Priest who understands our feelings and empathizes with us, we should more boldly approach the Throne in prayer so that we might have the grace and strength we need to face our situation.

• Hebrews 4:15-16 HCSB For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tested in every way as we are, yet without sin. Therefore let us approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us at the proper time.

At those times when you feel the most abandoned you should, by faith, turn to God in prayer. Even when you don’t know what to say; even when you are angry with Him; even when you don’t understand – go talk to Him. He has a plan. He knows what He’s doing.

• Romans 8:26-28 HCSB In the same way the Spirit also joins to help in our weakness, because we do not know what to pray for as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with unspoken groanings. And He who searches the hearts knows the Spirit's mind-set, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God: those who are called according to His purpose.

God was trying to get Moses to the point where He could be used. Moses, in his youthful eagerness, had arrogantly nominated himself as a judge over his people and they resented it. He rashly killed a man and tried to cover it up. He was messing up. God used the desert experience to humble Moses and make him useful. Look at the results.

• Numbers 12:3 HCSB Moses was a very humble man, more so than any man on the face of the earth.

It is in those times of despair, when we feel abandoned that we must exercise faith. You are not exercising faith when everything is going your way. You are not exercising faith when you understand all your circumstances and are at peace with them.

• Hebrews 11:1-2 HCSB Now faith is the reality of what is hoped for, the proof of what is not seen. For by it our ancestors were approved.

Just because you feel abandoned or are suffering doesn’t necessarily mean that God has in fact left you. Look at the following examples. All these people are praised by God as having great faith and they have left us a phenomenal example to follow.

• Hebrews 11:35-40 HCSB Women received their dead raised to life again. Some men were tortured, not accepting release, so that they might gain a better resurrection, and others experienced mockings and scourgings, as well as bonds and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawed in two, they died by the sword, they wandered about in sheepskins, in goatskins, destitute, afflicted, and mistreated. The world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts, mountains, caves, and holes in the ground. All these were approved through their faith, but they did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better for us, so that they would not be made perfect without us.

Sometimes it is the very greatness of God’s plans for us that cause others to become jealous and plot our demise. Joseph spent years in slavery and prison. But even when humans, even our own family, abandon us as long as we are following God’s will we can trust God’s ability to get us through whatever lies ahead.

• Genesis 37:18-20 HCSB They saw him in the distance, and before he had reached them, they plotted to kill him. They said to one another, "Here comes that dreamer! Come on, let's kill him and throw him into one of the pits. We can say that a vicious animal ate him. Then we'll see what becomes of his dreams!"

Take some time in prayer, fasting and meditation to verify that you are not living in rebellious sin, that you are obeying God in everything that you know, and that you are humble enough to listen to His call. Then trust the following promise.

• Joshua 1:5 HCSB No one will be able to stand against you as long as you live. I will be with you, just as I was with Moses. I will not leave you or forsake you.

Look at the end of the story. Moses became a giant of faith. He became a great leader who rescued his people from Egyptian bondage. And it was through that desert experience, that time of “abandonment” that Moses was trained and prepared for his great task.

• Hebrews 11:27-29 HCSB By faith he left Egypt behind, not being afraid of the king's anger, for he persevered, as one who sees Him who is invisible. By faith he instituted the Passover and the sprinkling of the blood, so that the destroyer of the firstborn might not touch them. By faith they crossed the Red Sea as though they were on dry land. When the Egyptians attempted to do this, they were drowned.

When you are abandoned by friends, family and everyone else around you, trust the fact that, if you are not living in willful sin, God has not left you. Keep quiet. Make no foolish decisions at that time. Wait silently for the will of God to be revealed.

• Psalms 38:11-15 HCSB My loved ones and friends stand back from my affliction, and my relatives stand at a distance. Those who seek my life set traps, and those who want to harm me threaten to destroy me; they plot treachery all day long. I am like a deaf person; I do not hear. I am like a speechless person who does not open his mouth. I am like a man who does not hear and has no arguments in his mouth. I put my hope in You, LORD; You will answer, Lord my God.

Do not rely on fickle humans. David’s men had just come from a great victory. They returned to find their homes destroyed and their families kidnapped and instead of trusting their captain to find a solution, they began wanting to kill him. Instead find you strength on the immutable Divine One.

• 1 Samuel 30:6 HCSB David was in a difficult position because the troops talked about stoning him, for they were all very bitter over the loss of their sons and daughters. But David found strength in the LORD his God.
• Isaiah 2:22 HCSB Put no more trust in man, who has only the breath in his nostrils. What is he really worth?

Paul also learned this valuable lesson. God will allow tough times in your life. God will allow suffering in your life. But it doesn’t mean that He has abandoned His child. He will use your circumstances to mold you into a useful servant and then lead you safely through all the crises until you finally reach home.

• 2 Timothy 4:16-18 HCSB At my first defense, no one came to my assistance, but everyone deserted me. May it not be counted against them. But the Lord stood with me and strengthened me, so that the proclamation might be fully made through me, and all the Gentiles might hear. So I was rescued from the lion's mouth. The Lord will rescue me from every evil work and will bring me safely into His heavenly kingdom. To Him be the glory forever and ever! Amen.