There are times when God seems far away. We pray, but nothing appears to change. We ask God to intervene, but the situation seems to get worse. We see suffering, injustice, and people who do evil seemingly prospering while those who seek to follow God continue to struggle. In those moments, the hardest part may not even be the trouble itself, but the seeming silence of God. Psalm 10 begins with this honest question: “Why, LORD, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?” Is it not reasonable to expect that our prayers should make a difference?
Psalm 10 then describes the kind of person who seems to prosper while God appears silent. The wicked person is marked by pride. He is arrogant, he boasts about what he desires, and he lives as though he is untouchable: “Nothing will ever shake me.” More seriously, there is no room for God in his thoughts. He assumes that God will not notice or hold him accountable: “God will never notice; he covers his face and never sees.” This is not merely an intellectual denial that God exists. It is a life lived as though God is irrelevant.
That is what makes “practical atheism” so dangerous. We may profess that God is real and believe that He is sovereign, yet when life becomes difficult, we can begin to live as though He is absent. We may stop praying because prayer seems pointless. We may compromise our convictions because it appears that those who ignore God are doing better than we are. We may begin to measure what is true by what we see happening around us rather than by what God has told us in His Word.
The wickedness described in Psalm 10 is not limited to what is in the heart. It comes out through the mouth. “His mouth is full of lies and threats; trouble and evil are under his tongue.” And it eventually produces evil deeds. The wicked take advantage of the weak and helpless, lying in wait for them and crushing them. What makes this especially disturbing is that they appear to get away with it. Their pride tells them that God does not see, and their apparent success seems to confirm it.
But the psalmist does not stop praying.
Instead, he cries out, “Arise, LORD! Lift up your hand, O God. Do not forget the helpless.” His circumstances have not yet changed, but he continues to bring them before God. This is important because there are seasons when faith does not look like having all the answers. Sometimes faith means continuing to pray when you do not understand what God is doing.
Psalm 10 shows us that it is possible to experience a genuine crisis of faith without abandoning faith altogether. The psalmist struggles with what he sees, but he brings that struggle to God. In fact, seasons of doubt and struggle can sometimes deepen our faith because they force us to ask what we are really trusting in. Are we trusting God only when circumstances make sense to us, or are we trusting Him because of who He has revealed Himself to be?
This is where we need to move from looking at our circumstances to looking at God’s character. Our circumstances change constantly, but God does not. Malachi 3:6 says, “I the LORD do not change.” When what we see seems to contradict what we know about God, we need to let God’s truth have the final word. The wicked may appear secure, but their security is temporary. Our situation may feel unstable, but God remains faithful.
The psalm reaches a turning point in verse 14: “But you, God, see the trouble of the afflicted; you consider their grief and take it in hand.” The wicked says, “God never sees.” The believer says, “But you, God, see.” That is the difference. The God who seemed to be hiding was never actually absent.
The final verses remind us that the LORD is King forever. He hears the desire of the afflicted. He encourages them. He listens to their cry. He defends the fatherless and the oppressed. God sees, God hears, and God will act. Yet this does not mean that He will always act according to our timetable. There are times when God allows wickedness to continue for a while. His apparent slowness is not indifference. As 2 Peter 3:9 reminds us, the Lord is patient, giving people time to repent rather than immediately bringing judgment.
But God’s patience will not last forever, and the waiting will not be indefinite. There will come a day when wickedness is finally judged and God’s people will enjoy eternal peace and joy. Until then, we are called to keep trusting and keep praying. Psalm 10 does not give us a simple explanation for every instance of suffering, but it gives us something better: confidence in the character of the God who sees, hears, and remains King.
And when it is difficult to trust a God who seems far away, we look to Jesus. The wounds of Christ are the undeniable proof that God is not indifferent to our suffering. At the cross, God demonstrated His love for us in the clearest possible way. Jesus Himself entered into suffering, rejection, betrayal, and abandonment. So when God seems absent, we do not have to conclude that He does not care. We can look at the cross and remember that His love has already been decisively demonstrated.
The question, then, is not whether we will ever experience moments when God seems absent. Psalm 10 shows that even God’s people can feel this way. The question is what we will do when those moments come. Will we allow our circumstances to define what we believe about God? Or will we continue to pray, hold on to His promises, and let His truth have the final word? The God who seemed far away was never absent. He was there all along.
