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Daily scripture. Seven minutes. Real peace. Path and Promise is a seven‑minute weekday devotional offering simple, sincere Bible reflections to help you feel closer to God.
Have you ever been doing everything you thought God wanted you to do and still wondered where He was? You prayed, you tried to be faithful, and yet heaven seemed quiet. Welcome to today's seven-minute devotional. Psalm twenty-two begins with thoughts like the ones I just asked about.
One of the most poignant questions is, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" We know those words because Jesus spoke them on the cross. But long before Calvary, they were the prayer of the psalmist. And Jewish tradition adds another fascinating voice to this psalm, Esther.
Think back to her story. Haman has received authority to destroy the Jews. Mordecai asks Esther to intervene. She knows the danger. No one enters the king's inner court without being summoned. She calls upon the Jews to fast for her. Then she makes that courageous declaration, "If I perish, I perish."
And then she goes into the king's court. Now, here's where Jewish tradition gives us remarkable insight. In the Talmud, the rabbis picture Esther approaching the king's inner court and suddenly sensing that God's divine presence has left her.
In that moment, they place the words of Psalm twenty-two on her lips, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" I find that deeply moving because Esther is not running away from God. She is doing exactly what faith has asked her to do. She has fasted. She has prepared. She has found the courage to act.
And then, yet at the moment she steps forward, she cannot feel God. Have you ever experienced something like that? We sometimes assume that if we are following the spirit, the way should open. Confirmation should come. Everything should work out. But Esther suggests something very different.
Often you can be walking directly into your calling and still feel alone. And that brings us back to something we noticed about Esther's story. God's name never appears in the book. He seems hidden. And yet when we look back, his hand seems to be everywhere. Perhaps Esther herself experienced the story the same way.
She could not see God while events were happening, but later she recognized what he had been doing. That may be true in our lives as well. Not feeling God's presence does not mean God is absent. There are times when we only recognize his hand in our lives afterward. notice something else about Psalm twenty-two. The psalmist asks, "Why hast thou forsaken me?" But listen carefully to how the prayer begins. "My God, my God." That matters. He feels abandoned by God, but he is still speaking to God.
He has questions, but the relationship is still there. That may be one of the most important lessons in the Psalms. Faith does not mean we never ask why. Faith simply means we continue to ask God. Joseph Smith understood that. From Liberty Jail, he cried, "O God, where art thou?" That is not very different from, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"
Joseph was a prophet. He had seen God. He had heard His voice. And still there came a moment when he asked, "Where art thou?" The Lord did not rebuke him for the question. Instead, he answered, "My son, peace be unto thy soul." Joseph's circumstances did not immediately change. The jail door did not suddenly open.
But something happened inside that prison. God spoke, and Joseph knew that he had not been forgotten. There is another Jewish image from Psalm twenty-two that I love. In commenting on Psalm twenty-two, Rabbi Rashi uses the image of rolling your burden onto God. Think about that. Some burdens are simply too heavy to carry alone: illness, grief, a struggling child, a marriage in trouble, a prayer that has gone unanswered for years.
We assume that faith means becoming strong enough to carry those things without breaking. Maybe faith means something else. Maybe faith means finally saying, "Heavenly Father, this is too heavy for me. I need thee to carry some of this." This is exactly what the Savior invites us to do. Alma taught that Christ would take upon himself our pains, sicknesses, and infirmities, so that he would know how to succor his people.
Jesus does not stand outside the door of our suffering and simply tell us to endure it. He enters it. Which brings us back to Psalm twenty-two. On the cross, Jesus himself cries, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" The Savior entered even that darkness. He knows what it is like to feel alone and therefore, when we say those words, we are speaking to someone who understands them. Psalm thirty-one gives us another statement Jesus uses on the cross. Into thy hand I commit my spirit. I love putting those two statements beside each other. My God, why hast thou forsaken me? And into thine hand I commit my spirit.
There is room and faith for both. I don't understand, and I still trust thee. Perhaps that is what Esther was doing when she walked toward the king. She did not know how the story would end. She did not have control over the outcome. She may not even have felt God's presence, but she kept walking. And sometimes that's faith, not certainty, not an absence of fear, just another faithful step.
So let me leave you with two questions. Is there a place in your life where God's silence has caused you to wonder whether he is still there? And what burden are you carrying today that you may need to stop carrying alone and conscientiously place into the hands of the Savior?
If you're walking through one of those seasons, remember Esther. You may not be able to see what God is doing. You may not even be able to feel him, but that does not mean he has left you. Keep praying, keep asking in faith, and keep walking. Please join me in the next podcast as we turn to Psalm twenty-three and Psalm forty-six and consider our next principle.
The Lord is my shepherd. Covenant trust changes the way we walk through the valley.