Psalm 9:18

But God will never forget the needy;
the hope of the afflicted will never perish.

Psalm 9:18, NIV

When I read this verse from Psalm 9, I am reminded of the Israelites in Egypt crying out under the heavy burden of slavery. They suffered under this burden for generations, and God never forgot them, their hope in Him never perished. In fact, it says in Exodus 2:25 that, “God saw the people of Israel – and God knew,” (ESV). This last phrase is actually meant in its original language to communicate that God knew the people of Israel and their hardship in the same way that a man knows his wife. It wasn’t just that God was aware of the situation, God saw and empathized with the pain of His people.

The amazing part about all of this is that this God who knew His people’s suffering in Exodus, is the same God we worship today. He is present with us and when we cry out to Him in our pain and suffering, He hears & knows us. Through Christ’s incarnation, He has taken on and experienced our humanity. He knows from experience the pain we go through. He knows firsthand the stress we feel. And He knows personally what it is like to struggle with poverty and with lacking the basic necessities. This is why the Psalmist can say with confidence that God does not forget the needy and that the hope of those suffering will never perish. Because God does not forget, our hope will never perish.

When reading this though, we must consider what the implications are for us and how we ought to live. On the one hand, when we find ourselves needy and afflicted (which in some way we all are at one point), we can  take heart knowing that God knows what we are experiencing. On the other hand, those of us who are Christians (imitators of Christ) ought not forget the needy either. Just as God has a special emphasis on caring for and loving those to whom society has done neither, so must we place a special emphasis on loving and caring for our neighbors who are drowning in poverty and struggling through a life of suffering. 

Finally, this hope we have knowing that God does not forget our pain and suffering, points us towards the day when He will eliminate all our pain and hurt. And our anticipation for this day when God will restore all and make all things right, ought to guide us as to how we should live now. While we are all in process of being sanctified in His image, that means we should be all the more eager to see the foretaste of His eternal kingdom here and now. We can’t control how the rest of the world behaves, but we know that if we want to experience life in His kingdom, we have access to that today through the Spirit.

Let us walk in the Spirit, unified together in a manner that brings down the fragrance of heaven to our communities.