“Why, O LORD, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?

When times of trouble stubbornly persist, the heart of the faithful cries out as it appears God is far off. In his arrogance the wicked taunts the faithful caught in the schemes of the wicked. Often the psalms speak of the struggles of faith, the struggle of the suffering righteous who watch the wicked prosper.

I remember daily my grandson Sully, who died at age fifteen months with infant ALL, leukemia. When I read a text like Psalm 10 I read it through the eyes of one who has witnessed the wicked scheme of Satan called pediatric cancer. The psalmist’s description of the wicked man serves as a metaphor of pediatric cancer–the arrogance, hunting down the weak, the boasting. “He lies in wait like a lion in cover; he lies in wait to catch the helpless; he catches the helpless and drags them off in his net. His victims are crushed, they collapse; they fall under his strength. He says to himself, ‘God has forgotten; he covers his face and never sees.'”

“Arise, LORD! Lift up your hand, O God. Do not forget the helpless.”

Parents’ desire (a weak word to express what their heart is longing and aching for) is deliverance now. The faith of the believer is that God hears her cries. Yet deliverance might not come now. Trust in God may waver in the weakness of the pain and heartache. However, trust does not break. Christ strengthens trust in God as hope in his return sustains. Christ is coming. All wickedness will perish. God’s people, all of them, and the children, will be eternally delivered. In the midst of continuing affliction, of the arrogant evil of wickedness, the cries of those who trust in God through Christ are heard. God gives strength and hope. He gives peace. He pours out his love.

“You hear, O LORD, the desire of the afflicted; you encourage them, and you listen to their cry, defending the fatherless and the oppressed.”