Why, Why, O God?

Psalm 74:1
O God, why hast thou cast us off forever? Why doth thine anger smoke against the sheep of thy pasture?

Have you ever listened to your own bellyaching. why do I always have a negative attitude, even when things are going great? God allows us to have a relationship with Him! That thought alone should cause us to shudder with joy! Why then do we gripe and bellyache?

One of the many reasons I love the Holy Scriptures is for it's honest revelations. The Psalmist takes up the pen to write his innermost feelings. We may be too, spiritual to publicly say out loud what the Psalmist wrote, but we all have had these feelings! (Right?)

O God, why hast thou cast us off forever?
Yes! This is an overstatement. We all tend to add a bit to our woes, don't we? All fishermen add a bit of length and a bunch of weight to the "one that got away". In the most sacred place of prayer, we humans drag all of our flesh into our everyday conversations with God.

The Psalmist must have strongly felt that God had abandoned him in his need. Notice the structure of the phrases; "cast off" = thrown out like yesterday's trash, expendable garbage. The Psalmist had himself thrown out trash before, he understood the filthiness of the illustration, and inserted himself (us) in this picture. We do this too!

Why doth thine anger smoke against the sheep of thy pasture?
More exaggerations! I do not disagree with the writer, because I have had these types of thoughts and probably worse! When we find ourselves in the dumps, it is easy to dive down in self pity!

An Infantry Soldier knows the term "Smoked". You have heard the old adage, where there is smoke there is fire! this term is a cry of someone that feels like everything is going against them! A state of continual punishment. If you watch the television, you will see that there are places that fires rage all the time, it seems like the fire is never going to end! Everyone one of us can relate to the Psalmists words! When things go bad, they go really bad for us!

This verse is very depressing! Life can be very depressing! God has given us a wonderful promise that He will "Never leave, nor forsake us!" Even when we bellyache! A-Men!