Wednesday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time
I’m tempted to begin and end my reflection with our psalm response today with no further exposition. The Lord will not abandon his people. Period. The End. I will offer a brief reflection, but if you’d like to simply engage in Lectio Divina on that statement of profound truth from Psalm 94 without reading my words, I think that would be a fantastic gift to you.
We all feel abandoned or rejected at times, don’t we? I imagine there is not a human being who has never experienced a sense of being left all alone. Sometimes other people do in fact abandon us. Our feeling lost or alone comes from outside ourselves, the result of the actions or inaction of others. As our psalm states, “Your people, O LORD, they trample down, your inheritance they afflict.” Sometimes we feel abandoned or rejected due to forces or factors within us. Fear, anxiety, guilt, shame, depression – these feelings often arise within us and can become oppressive, causing us to feel cut off. Whether we have experienced an actual or perceived abandonment, it’s not uncommon to project this sense of loss onto God. We feel abandoned, so we conclude that God has abandoned us.
I’m praying today that we can each embrace the truth: The Lord will not abandon his people. That is true for us collectively as the people of God, and it is true for each of us as individuals. Verse 14 states, “For the LORD will not cast off his people, nor abandon his inheritance . . .” Another translation reads, “For the LORD will not reject his people; he will never forsake his inheritance.” I’m captivated by this understanding that we are God’s inheritance.
As God’s inheritance, we are God’s portion, God’s heritage, God’s legacy, God’s rightful and treasured possession. We rightfully belong to the God who created us and who redeems and sustains us. In our natural lives and relationships, heirs receive an inheritance based on birthright and legal protections. A father passes away, for example, and the children receive an inheritance. Marvel at the divine reversal here – God the Father receives us as his inheritance! This is too marvelous for words, too extraordinary to wrap our brains around. I invite you to pause and let this truth permeate your being. We are God’s inheritance; you are God’s inheritance.
God maintains us as his inheritance and will not ever forsake us or abandon us because God loves us with a covenant love. Not only did God establish several unbreakable covenants with the people of Israel, but God also ultimately established the New Covenant with us in Christ, through the Paschal Mystery. Throughout the Old Testament we see God’s unwavering faithfulness in the face of the people’s disobedience and rejecting God. Even periods of exile were not God’s forsaking of the people, but rather an experience intended to produce repentance and returning. God loves us with a jealous, passionate love, a fiery unconditional love that cannot be quenched by our infidelity. Even when we play the harlot, our divine Spouse loves us and waits for us, calling us back to himself. And just as we are God’s inheritance, God made us co-heirs with Christ of all the promises of God. Paul writes in Romans 8:17, “Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.” We are assured that God will never abandon or forsake us because we exist in a covenant relationship of love with the Holy Trinity, and as such are both inheritance and heir.
Friends, this is a marvelous truth that I pray we each embrace and embody today: The Lord will not abandon his people. If you feel abandoned today, present that sense of isolation to God and invite God’s love, light, and truth to wash over you. Other people may abandon you, but God is always and forever close to you. In fact, God pursues you with a desire for ever deepening and growing intimacy. Verse 18 of our psalm is an honest affirmation, “When I said, ‘My foot is slipping,’ your love, O LORD, supported me. When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought joy to my soul.” May the Lord’s love support you this day and may the Lord’s consolation bring joy to your soul. Amen and Alleluia!
-Elizabeth Wells