friend, do you feel abandoned?
What is the greatest specter of abandonment for you?
- An empty square that you have to cross by foot in the middle of the night?
- A group of people sitting cozily together while you are sitting alone?
- That moment after all four of your children have left home?
- The person you married 14 years ago packing his/her bags?
- Knowing that you’ve been living for years with someone who is an addict, but you feel like you can’t talk to anyone about it?
If you feel lonely and abandoned, friend, then know that Jesus understands how you feel.
“From noon until three in the afternoon darkness came over all the land.” (Matthew 27:45, NIV)
It was completely dark in the middle of the day. Jesus cried out:
“...‘Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?’ … ‘My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?’” (Matthew 27:46, NIV, bold added)
How lonely Jesus was!
Never had there been a moment in Jesus’ life that God the Father had left Him. Jesus was so deeply filled with and surrounded by the past, present, and future sin of the whole world that God the Father could no longer be in His presence.
If you were to put a sponge on a puddle of water, the sponge would suck up all the water. This is how Jesus took all the sins and diseases of the world into Himself. He also took yours, friend.
“Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?”
This is also the only time Jesus addresses the Father as “God.” His relationship with God the Father was put on hold and cut off. At that moment, Jesus was alone. To completely cut a person off from God is the greatest punishment you can give him/her.
Jesus was cut off from the Father in our place so that we would never have to be cut off from Him.
friend, shall we pray together? “Thank You, Jesus! You absorbed all loneliness so that I no longer have to be alone. You left heaven and entered darkness to set me free from every form of abandonment. Thank You, Lord! Amen.”
Your life is powerful when you can find God’s closeness in your loneliness.
Questions to ponder:
- Is there a sin that Jesus did not bear?
- What does this moment in Jesus’ life reveal to you when you feel abandoned?
- If you were to be face-to-face with Jesus right now, what would He tell you?
Remember…you are a miracle!
I am your friend,
