It is devastating to be abandoned by someone you loved, someone you hoped you could trust. Those who have experienced such abandonment are often hit by anxiety and depression, shame and self-blame, low self-esteem, despair about their present and doubtful about their future, and they end up having difficulty trusting others.
Perhaps this is why Scripture is adamant about promising us that God will never leave us or forsake us. Deuteronomy 31:6 stresses, “It is the Lord your God who goes before you; he will not fail you or forsake you.” Deuteronomy 31:8 echoes that promise: “It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not fail you or forsake you.” Psalm 94:14 emphasizes, “The Lord will not forsake his people.” Isaiah 41:17 declares, “When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue is parched with thirst, I the Lord will answer them; I the God of Israel will not forsake them.” Hebrews 13:5 states, “I will never leave you or forsake you.” And in Matthew 28:20, Jesus announced, “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
When things go wrong in our lives, we may feel like God has deserted us. David and other psalmists certainly felt that way at times. Psalm 13:1 pleads, “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?” Psalm 88:14 asks in agony, “O Lord, why do you cast me off? Why do you hide your face from me?” Psalm 142:4 laments, “Look on my right hand and see—there is no one who takes notice of me; no refuge remains to me; no one cares for me.”
But there is a difference between feelings and facts. We may, at times, feel like we have been forgotten by God, but God has promised never to abandon us.
Moreover, God has provided evidence by which we can be assured of God’s promises not to desert us. In Isaiah 49:15-16, God declares, “Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet, I will not forget you. See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands.”
What do we find inscribed on the palms of Jesus’s hands? We find the marks of the spikes that were driven into him to nail him to the cross. That which is inscribed on the palms of Jesus’s hands is the evidence that assures us that God has already gone so far as to become one of us and to die on a cross for our sins so that nothing can separate us from God’s love! That which is inscribed on the palms of Jesus’s hands is our assurance that God will never abandon us or forget us!