What should you do when it feels like God has forgotten?
Text: Psalm 13
Hosts:
Brian French
Vicki Hitzges
Nathan Norman
Narrator: Kristin Norman
The CrossTalk Podcast is a production of CrossTalk Global, equipping biblical communicators, so every culture hears God’s voice. To find out more, or to support the work of this ministry please visit www.crosstalkglobal.org
Produced by Nathan James Norman/Untold Podcast Production
© 2025 CrossTalk Global
Kristin: Think back to when you first trusted Jesus for your salvation. Everyone's experience is different, but many people remember being excited and exuberant. You can't get enough of God, the Scriptures, prayer, and you were in church every time its doors were open, and you probably waited in the parking lot for someone to unlock the front door. You were so excited, you could feel the Holy Spirit. When you read the Scriptures, your prayers were answered quickly and often. You were filled with so much happiness and excitement, you thought, if this is what a young believer feels like, then it must be awesome to be an older believer. But if you've been a believer for any length of time, you know that at some point, the bottom drops out. Life gets hard. You read the Bible and feel nothing. You go to church and it feels dead. You pray and there is nothing but silence. What happened? Is it because of sin? You repented and God still doesn't answer. There's nothing but trials, hardships, pain, depression, and silence. An ancient theologian, St. John of the Cross, referred to this as the dark night of the soul. He struggled with this, and many believers today struggle. When it feels like God has abandoned us, what should believers do when it feels like God has forgotten us? Today, while Dr. Kent is away teaching with CrossTalk, join Vicki Hitskiss, Brian French, and Nathan Norman as they discover how King David responded when he felt God had forgotten him in Psalm 13. Welcome to Crosstalk, a Christian podcast whose goal is for us to encourage each other to not only increase our knowledge of the Bible, but to take the next step beyond information into transformation. Our goal is to bring the Bible to life, into all our lives. I'm Kristin Norman. Today, Brian French, Vicki Hitskiss, and Nathan Norman, take a look at the Psalms. If you have a Bible handy, turn to Psalm 13 as we join their discussion.
Nathan: Vicki and Brian, in your experience, do Christians experience times in their lives when they feel like God has abandoned them?
Vicki: I think abandoned is strong, but that he's not there, that he's not listening, that he doesn't answer. Prayer, I think is pretty common. Yeah, you think so, Brian?
Brian: I do. One of the hardest parts of being a pastor is sitting with people and sitting with families and being asked, why hasn't God? Or why won't God? Or why did God allow? And that's often when my answer is very theologically clear. I don't know. It's often when tragedy strikes or there's a lifelong desire that it takes a person a long time, relationally to work up the courage and trust to tell you that they've been wanting this to happen in their lives and that thing just hasn't been met. I think I've seen that probably most recently with some couples who want to have children but haven't yet and haven't been able to yet, or a child that's diagnosed with an illness that is a long term, long road change of life.
Nathan: So I think, Vicki, Yeah, that might be a little too strong. But there are points where Christians feel like God's not listening. He's silent, he's not taking action. Maybe he should. And that's not abnormal to the Christian experience. In fact, King David, all the way back in Psalm 13 felt the same thing. I send people back to Psalm 13 regularly to try and tell them that whatever you're feeling, you can tell God and express what you're feeling. He already knows you feel that way, but you should tell him this is what you feel. Because this isn't kind of a worship song that we're going to typically sing. And yet here it is. So, Vicki, could you read us the first two verses of Psalm 13?
Vicki: Yes, and I'm glad you brought that up, because I was going to say it isn't atypical, it's in the scripture, but I couldn't remember where it was. So I'm glad you brought this up. Psalm 13 says, how long, Lord, will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long will I store up anxious concerns within me, agony in my mind every day? How long will my enemy dominate me?
Nathan: Wow. Yeah. So the way I remember it is lucky number 13. This is where I go when I'm in the Drex. That's right. We don't know the exact situation David wrote this song about, but I can imagine him hiding in a cave on the run from King Saul and running out of food. Or hiding from Saul in a Philistine town, just waiting for the moment that he's discovered as an Israelite and has to run again or possibly die. So going back to our emotions, what emotions do we feel in this part of the psalm?
Vicki: He's anxious, he's tense. Yeah. He could be angry. Absolutely frustrated.
Nathan: Yeah.
Brian: It's tired and emotion.
Nathan: Yeah. Yeah, I think so.
Brian: I am deeply impressed that one David had the capability of putting his thoughts together on paper to come up with this clear of an emotional communication. Because when I've been in these moments where I'm wondering, God, have you forgotten me? The response is something along the lines of. And that's about as clear as I can communicate something and words are really hard to come by. But I think he's tired of being tired. I think he's depressed and I think he's really frustrated from the anxious concerns. Like it's just always there. It's always on. It's like tinnitus or tinnitus or however you want to pronounce it that, you know, that ringing in your ear. As some people get older, I caught it at the current young age that I am, but I have this constant ringing in my ears.
Nathan: Yeah.
Brian: And it's just this high pitched whine that if it's quiet and I should be at peace, I'm not. And it's frustrating and it drives me crazy. I think that's what David's feeling.
Nathan: Yeah. Well, make it a little more personal. Have you ever felt like God's forgotten you?
Brian: Yeah, especially when ministry doesn't go the way I want. When you prepare what you think will be a life changing sermon for someone and you as a lead pastor, you get to regularly communicate the Bible on a Sunday morning to the, to the whole church as much as possible. And you come up with what you think is just a, just a sermon that's going to really resonate with people, it's going to change lives. And then people come up after the service and want to talk, you know, just something inconsequential. They, they want to talk about, you know, the bad weather we're having or, you know, they want to talk about just some minor thing, you know, I got in my car, broke down this week, or, you know, just little minor things. I get frustrated, those kinds of things.
Nathan: What about you, Vicky?
Vicki: Well, the, the answer is yes. But I can remember a friend of mine, beautiful girl, she was married. She had a husband that was a fabulous father and she had like four children and a baby on the way. And one day he went on a business trip and he disappeared. And she prayed and prayed and prayed. And I remember her telling me and another friend that God just didn't answer. And she said she got out of bed and she opened her window so that God could hear her better. And she said to God, to the sky, she said, God, listen to me, listen to me. And our mutual friend who was listening told me later she said, I just thought that was crazy. And I thought, I didn't. I understood that.
Nathan: Yep.
Vicki: Anyway, she just, she just felt like, you know, God wasn't there. He wasn't listening. It turned out her husband faked. Faked his death. He just wanted out.
Nathan: Wow.
Vicki: Yeah. Long, long, awful story.
Nathan: But anyway, yeah, no, that's a good image. Yeah. I think people who have not gone through that level of pain, don't they say, oh, that's crazy. But anyone who has that does not sound crazy. It resonates. That's why the first two verses of this psalm resonate with us. Have you forgotten, Lord? Will you hide your face from me? I'm concerned, I'm anxious. I'm in agony every day. And my enemies, I am.
Vicki: Listen to me.
Nathan: In general, you guys have viewed people who've felt abandoned or forgotten, whether by God or other people. How do people respond when they're in that high stress, high anxiety area?
Vicki: Oh, it's terrible. They don't sleep. I know when I'm stressed, I eat. Rocky road is my deal. But when I really feel abandoned, I can't eat. I mean, when I'm in high stress, that's high stress. I can't eat. And then if God isn't that doesn't feel like he's showing up on top of that. Wow. That's as bad as it gets.
Brian: Yeah. Yeah. And I would. I would add to that as well. I think that's absolutely true. I think some people, they come to a place where they're just angry and you forget me. I'm forgetting you. You're doing this to me. I'm not going to give you, like, any time of day. I'm just not going to. I'm just not going to respond. I think they forget the person who they think has forgotten them.
Nathan: Yeah. I think it's people either totally withdraw or they totally explode. Right. It's probably one of those two extremes. I had a false accusation that my family was dealing with not too long ago, and I didn't eat or have the desire to eat for two days straight. Like nothing. Like absolutely, completely and utterly nothing. It's hard. It's hard to go through. But it doesn't get better in the psalm because David is desperate and so kind of like what you were saying earlier, Bryan, where you're just amazed he was able to write all this down in his desperation. But he did much to our help. I think in verse three, this is what it says.
Brian: Consider me an answer. Lord, my God, restore brightness to my eyes, otherwise I will sleep in death. My enemy will say, I have triumphed over him, and my foes will rejoice because I am shaken.
Nathan: Okay. The emotions are still strong. They shift a little bit. What's he feeling now? How would you describe this now?
Vicki: He's just feeling dead. When you don't Sleep, that's how you feel. Your eyes are not bright. And he's saying, I will sleep in death. Maybe he's considering suicide, but he's just. There's just nothing there. He's just going through the motions. And he knows his enemy is going to say, ha. Beat him. And his foes, he's saying, will rejoice because he's shaken. This is a strong man. This is a man who was king at a young age. And he's thinking, my foes will rejoice because I'm shaken.
Brian: Yeah, I think he's feeling numb. I think he's feeling. I think he's feeling hopeless. That, well, I have done everything I can and nothing has worked great. This is what's going to happen. This is the end result. And I don't know if you feel paranoia or if you act out being paranoid, but he's react like, if you don't answer, I'm dead. Which necessarily isn't necessarily true, but that's how he's feeling. If this doesn't change, I'm dead. My enemies win. Like, he's just, he's irrationally drawing all of these. This is going to happen. This is going to happen and this is going to happen. And it's just going to be this awful descent into madness and despair and I can't do anything.
Nathan: Yeah, yeah, he's desperate. He's desperate. He asked God to restore the light to his eyes and that's a metaphor for reviving his physical strength, his moral energy. And he presents himself as a dying man who will be overwhelmed by darkness of death unless God himself rescues him. David doesn't just ask God to be rescued, but he tells God why he should be rescued. If God doesn't answer, he's going to die. If God doesn't answer, David says the ungodly will interpret their triumph was not only over David, but his faith and his God as well. So I think that's interesting because oftentimes I'm just praying, God help me. And there's no reasoning behind it. It's almost passive aggressive on my part. I'm like, you should just know why this prayer request exists. But imagine Brian and Vicki, imagine you were praying fervently and desperate for so many things. Restore a relationship, supply your financial needs, heal me or my family member from this disease, return my child to me. And in your prayer, God answers. And he answers you with one word, why?
Vicki: Like, why should I do it?
Nathan: Yeah, like, so you're asking for something and you hear God answer you but all he says is, why? What would you say?
Vicki: Well, it depends on what it was.
Nathan: Give me a for instance. Your friend's got cancer and you want God to heal her. Why?
Vicki: Okay. I remember when one of my friends was sick and I loved her very much. If you said why, I would say, because I love her very, very much. Please heal her. She's a Bible teacher. She is a mother, she's a wife. She has an impact in the community. We love her deeply. Please heal her.
Brian: Yeah, my cynical, sarcastic side said wants to just immediately respond, just autonomically. Why not? What don't I know? Right. But. But to be honest, I would say because, God, why wouldn't you want to? Why? Like and. And some of the things you listed. Don't you love them? I love them. We agree on that. And look at how gifted they are for ministry and how much we care about them and how valuable they are. And why don't you, you know, in. In the sense of a person. But I honestly land on a. You know, when you mentioned finances, there were some moments in life when finances were really tough. And I said, God, if you don't provide, we're done. Only you can do this. And that would be my answer. It would be. If God were to ask why, I would say, because only you can. I've tried other things along with praying, and they didn't work. I am at the end of my rope and we still need this. This is something that if we lose this, we lose everything. It's up to you. Help me. You're my only hope. Without making you think of any movie quotes, it really is that you're the only solution possible. Only you can do this.
Nathan: Yeah, I think it's a very Hebraic thing. Right. A very Jewish thing to. David presents his prayer request, and then he gives him all these good reasons why God should answer his prayer request. I don't naturally do that. Right. I think my response is similar to yours, Brian. Well, just because. Right. You know, come on, you already know the reason why. But David, he backfills this with the reasons. And his main reason Here is verse 4. His enemy is going to say, I triumph over him, and my foes will rejoice. So you got to let me go. And then this is what's incredible about Psalm 13. Nothing, according to the song, changes in David's situation. His situation doesn't change. His outlook doesn't change. But we go from verse four to verse five and everything changes. So, Vicki, go ahead and read verse five and six.
Vicki: There it's really beautiful. He says, but I have trusted in your faithful love. My heart will rejoice in your deliverance. I will sing to the Lord because he has treated me generously. So this is all about hope and believing that God's going to step in.
Nathan: Yeah. And this is how the psalm ends. We're at the end, so something's changed. He doesn't tell us what, but something's changed because the emotions are completely different. So let's identify some of those emotions that he's expressing in this song right now.
Brian: I think he's hopeful. I think he's put his hope not just in that God could do something. It's that God has done something in the past. God has shown love to him and has been faithful in showing love to him in the past. He has treated him generously and has cared for him. If this psalm was written after Samuel showed up and said, man looks on the outside, but God looks on the heart and then anoints him, I think that's 1 Samuel 17. But that moment where God just shows up and generously chooses him, and he goes, wait, who am I? Why do I deserve this? That's massive. And that I think, looking back at how God has cared for David in the past, when David did that, and he realized, wow, I trusted him then, I can trust him now. Those things seem big then. And he was generous to me and care for me. He's. He is who he is. I can. I can trust him to care for me now. And every time I have felt like God, I am in a stuck situation and I don't know what to do. I have.
Vicki: You've shown up.
Brian: I have looked back at how God has shown up in the past.
Nathan: Amen.
Brian: And realized, wow, he had me then. And I thought those were big weeds we were stuck in then. And he delivered, he honored, he protected, he provided. He will do so again. I can trust him in this moment and, you know, help me believe that I can trust you in this moment.
Nathan: Yeah. Yeah. Anything else you're feeling from this, Vicki?
Vicki: Well, I'm with you. It's pretty shocking, especially because he's been pretty suicidal. And then he's. But I've trusted in your love. My heart will rejoice in your deliverance. I will sing to the Lord because he has treated me generously. So instead of looking forward in despair, he looks backwards and marvels at what God has done and assumes God's going to do it again.
Nathan: Yeah, yeah. The shift is unreal. It's like we went From a Billie Eilish song to a Simon and Garfunkel song, right? Like, it's like Nirvana and then boom. It's just. It's a Sesame street song. Like, wow, this. The shift is incredible. I would love to have heard the original version of this song, how it was sung. But when we feel like God has forgotten us, like David did, what should we do? Well, when we feel God's forgotten us, we should decide to trust in God's faithful future deliverance. We look back and say, he's been faithful in the past so we can trust him for the future. This is an act of the will. David had to have made some sort of decision to say, I'm going to trust, because he says in verse 5, but I have trusted in your unfaithful love. I'm anxious, I'm depressed, I'm scared, I'm nervous, I'm angry. All of these things. I feel like you have abandoned me. But even in the midst of my misery, I'm choosing to trust in your faithful love. In the dark night of our souls, when we cannot feel God and it seems like he's abandoned us, we must choose to trust that he is working, that he cares for us and will work everything out, even when we can't feel it. So at crosstalk, we're story people, and we're story people, because I don't know, Brian, how much of the Bible would you say is story? Narrative literature?
Brian: Three quarters at least, right?
Nathan: Yeah, at least. It's incredible. So we're convinced that if there's any such thing as universal language, it's story, which we've heard Kent say. How many times would we hear Kent say that, Brian?
Brian: Since as long as I've known him.
Nathan: Right. Thousands of times. So most stories, well, good stories, follow the same story structure. We've discovered that over the course of literary history, we call it the monomythic cycle. And in a comedy, and that's a story that has a happy ending, this is typically how it goes. Okay, Summer one. Things are great, but life is filled with conflict. So we quickly move to the fall. Things get worse and worse, and we move into winter. And just when it looks like our protagonist or hero or main character is done for, there's a surprise twist. Tensions start going away in spring. And then we hit summer two, where things are often better than they were when they started. So, case in point, Izzy's Aladdin. Summer one, Aladdin is carefree. Then he finds the lamp. Fall, he has to lie to the princess about who he is winter. The evil Jafar finds the lamp. And when he's about to take over world, what happens? What's the surprise twist? Well, they trick him into becoming a genie and he loses his free will to act. Boom. Aladdin and the princess reconcile that spring. And then the kingdom is restored and they have a new prince, Aladdin. And that's summer two. Better than when he started off. Let's look at Jesus. The savior of the world appears. Wow, that's great. Summer one. His own people are suspicious. Well, that's the fall, right? Things are getting a little more tense. His people reject him, betray him, and hand him over to the Romans to be crucified. That is dead winter. Things can't get worse. But what's the surprise twist of Jesus story?
Vicki: The resurrection.
Nathan: Yeah, right, the resurrection. Then the actual church is built, right? And so we're kind of living in the spring time of all that, right? There's still tension, there's still difficulties until Jesus comes back. But then summer two will hit and the kingdom will come in power. All is restored, and actually it's better than ever before. And that's what we're looking for. So when we're looking at Psalm 13 and we're living in the dregs of our own life, what about your own story? Right? Because you might think this is just some made up literary device, but it's not. All the stories of scripture are true and they follow this pattern. Your story will follow this pattern, and some lives will be easier than others. Some of you will experience this general surprise twist of deliverance early in life, and some of you will experience it later on. But ultimately, when we die, death will be our final twist. For those of us who have not responded to God's revelation, it will result in eternal separation from God. So it's not a comedy. It's not a good ending. It's a tragedy. For those of us who have responded to God's revelation of Jesus Christ, his life, his death, his burial and resurrection for the forgiveness of sins, we get eternal life after death. That's summer too. It's better than the life that we have right now. It's better than any life we could construct or conceive of in this life. Do you know why David went from depression to rejoicing? Is because he knew God loved him. And in his pain and his feelings of abandonment, he decided to trust that God was working. What does God want from you in your depression? When you feel forgotten? He wants you to cry out to him. Even in the midst of your feelings, not because they have changed, but in spite of them. He wants you to say, although it feels like the Lord is not here and the whole culture crumbles around me, I know that he loves me. I know that I'm a believer in Jesus Christ, and I know that he will deliver me, hopefully in this life, but most certainly in the life to come. When we feel like God has forgotten us, we should decide to trust in God's faithful future deliverance. We will all go through long periods of dark nights of the soul. It's part of the journey. But in your dark night, trust in God's deliverance.
Kristin: Sometimes life can just be hard. When we feel like God doesn't hear our prayers and he's forgotten us, what should we do? Look back. Decide to trust that because God has been faithful in the past, he will be faithful in the future and in his time, he will deliver US. The CrossTalk podcast is a production of CrossTalk Global Equipping Biblical communicators so every culture hears God's voice. To find out more about this educational nonprofit organization, please visit www.crosstalkglobal.org. this month we're training biblical communicators in Panama and Kenya. And next month we're launching a new educational cohort group in Southern California. Help us empower the next generation of biblical communicators. All you have to do is click Donate in the show notes and make a donation of any size. If you're interested in being educated by CrossTalk, please click the link in the show notes. You can also support this show by rating it on Apple Podcasts or wherever you find it. Be sure to listen next Friday as we continue our discussion in the Word of God and discover how to go deeper in our relationship with God. You won't want to miss it.
Vicki: You think so, Brian?
Brian: I think so. One of the hardest parts of being a pastor is sitting with families. And I hear an airplane.
Vicki: Oh, that's here.
Nathan: Don't worry about it. It's all multi track. I'll take it. I'll see it. I'll see it on the the waveform and mute Vicky during that. That portion. You're good.
Brian: You got it. I think it's super helpful that one of the things David chooses to do in the middle of the psalm is that he says he will sing. Now, I get it. He's a musical guy. But I can tell you more often than not, just from a personal level, not a ministry perspective, but just from a personal level, that when I have God, why aren't you answering these things? Where are you? And I choose to trust. One of the best ways to accelerate that is to choose to sing and to choose to sing worship songs, especially if I don't get to choose them. So if I can go to church and the band has put together a playlist, I have found that a lot of times, speaking very subjectively, that some song, some lyrics will phrase what I can't put into words and it will remind me that that's who God is and he's not lost me, he's not forgotten me, and there'll be just something that happens. Or I'll put on a playlist on Spotify or Apple Music, and I won't choose the songs to play. I will just play some worship music and it might play an old hymn, they might play something contemporary, but a lyric will come that goes, yes, that's the anchor for this moment right now. I don't have to despair, and it's enough to get me through to continue to ask, to continue to pray. I think David's onto something. When he says sing, make yourself sing. It'll help.