Quarantine got you down?

Are you feeling cut off from the world, your people, all the fun things, maybe even joy, right now? The psalmist felt that, too. Read his words:

I said in my haste, "I am cut off from before Your eyes;" nevertheless You heard the voice of my supplications when I cried out to You.

I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing; I have come into deep waters where the floods overflow me. 

Waters flowed over my head; I said, "I am cut off!" I called on Your name, O LORD, from the lowest pit. You have heard my voice: "Do not hide Your ear from my sighing, from my cry for help." You drew near on the day I called on You, and said, "Do not fear!" 

Will the LORD cast off forever? And will He be favorable no more? Has His mercy ceased forever? Has His promise failed forevermore? Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has He in anger shut up His tender mercies? And I said, "This is my anguish; but I will remember the years of the right hand of the Most High." I will remember the works of the LORD; surely I will remember Your wonders of old. 

I would have lost heart, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.

(Ps. 31:22; Ps. 69:2; Lam. 3:54-57; Ps. 77:7-11; Ps. 27:13)

It's not wrong to feel all. the. feelings, especially now when being faced with circumstances we've never encountered before. Your stay at home order might feel like it's stretching out into eternity. 

But the psalmist reminds us that we are never cut off from God. He always hears our voice and our cries, even from the lowest pit. And He is fully available to us right now. Nothing about Him has changed in this pandemic. He is just as near as He's always been. In yet another psalm we read, "I sought the Lord and He answered me, and rescued me from all my fears... The Lord is near the brokenhearted; he saves those crushed in spirit" (Ps. 34:4, 18). Look to Him, and you will "see His goodness in the land of the living."