The 44th psalmist ascends the historic mountain of Israel’s power and prosperity. Wars won. Enemies crushed. Lands conquered. God’s name made famous. Blessing after blessing is recounted.
Then with jarring juxtaposition, verse nine pushes us off the cliff.
The same Psalmist who praised God’s work now accuses him.
“But you have rejected and disgraced us.”
“You have sold your people.”
“You have made us a byword.”
“You have made us turn back.”
Current reality looks nothing like that mountaintop of old. Once victorious, God’s people are now a dust-covered, shame-bearing object of scorn.
My cynical self wonders: Did they have it coming? We know this Old Testament pattern. Surely they chased after false gods, bowed to idols, or violated God’s covenant? Or they were hypocrites, religious box-checkers with false hearts?
Nope. Not this time.
Psalm 44:17-18 vindicates the people: “All this has come upon us though we have not forgotten you, and we have not been false to your covenant. Our hearts have not turned back, nor have our steps departed from your way.”
There is no logical equation for their suffering. They honored God, but still the Psalmist cries out, “Yet for your sake we are killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered” (44:22).
Does any of this ring true to you in this season? Forget about the mountaintop of old– How about the mountaintop of three months ago?? Are you suffering even though you’ve been faithful to God? Are you dealing with pain and loss and wondering why? Do you long to cry out to God, “Awake! Why are you sleeping O Lord?” as the Psalmist cries?
The honesty of Psalm 44 is comforting. But it’s incomplete. The truth is that we have something the Psalmist never had: The rest of the suffering story.
When Paul was writing mighty Romans 8, the Holy Spirit impressed this very Psalm 44 on his mind! Like a tiny lightbulb fastened into place on a string of dark Christmas lights, Paul plugs Psalm 44:22 into Romans 8:36, and the whole psalm lights up!
Paul echoes the Psalmist’s cry: “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” Here Paul indicates that followers of Christ face the exact same suffering as the people of Psalm 44. Christ’s death and resurrection did not guarantee our immunity from suffering. So what has changed? Everything.
God’s answer to our suffering is that God sent his son to suffer. (Romans 8:32) Because of Jesus’ suffering, we are guaranteed an absolute eternal cleaving to Himself. Because of the cross, we are forever fused to his love.
Romans 8 promises that nothing can separate us from His love including:
tribulation
distress
persecution
famine
nakedness
danger
sword
Where suffering used to tear down, rip apart, divide, break, slice, and scatter (Psalm 44), now we are more than conquerers “through him who loved us” (Romans 8:37).
We face many of the exact same things as the 44th Psalmist, but we face them after Jesus faced them. We walk through suffering as one completely and eternally sealed with the love of Christ. Our Sovereign God ordained that this holy love seal his children even from “things present and things to come” (Romans 8:38). His love is not a reactionary love. He does not love us because we loved him first — the opposite! He does not choose us because we choose him. He died for us while we were still sinners (Romans 5:8). What mighty love is this?
Maybe you feel like the Psalmist staring back at the mountaintop of life just a few weeks ago. You wonder how things fell so far so fast. You wonder where your Savior is and if he’s fallen asleep. Be assured he’s wide awake and seated at the right hand of God (Romans 8:34). If you are in Christ, he is nearer to you than you know. In all this loss, he is making you into more than a conquerer. I pray that you would cling to the love that is clinging to you. He loves you so much. Psalm 44 ends with the cry for a Redeemer. Our Redeemer has come. The Lord Jesus is his name. When all is said and done, may you find Christ truer and more glorious in this valley of suffering than you ever knew him on the mountaintop.