A stream in the desert

I admit that the older I get, the more challenged I am to remember names. It’s embarrassing for me to meet my classmate at ISS Netherlands and flip through those mental file cards, only to draw a blank. No one likes to be forgotten. For many of us, the spiritual pain of depression lies in feeling forgotten by God. It is as though God is overlooking us in his oversight of this world.

In such a moment, the Psalmist remembers a resource that is still available: prayer. The Psalmist will speak to God out of this painful experience: “I say to God my rock, ‘why have you forgotten me?’ (Psalm 42: 9). Some of us are in the desert now. We thirst for God and think we have been forgotten. But the Psalmist encourages us to cry out to God in the midst of our pain. Be assured that when you pray, God hears.