22Yet for your sake we face death all day long; we have become as sheep to be slaughtered.
These words penned almost 3000 years ago express a very real feeling that we ourselves can experience. The writer feels as though he is doing the right things and yet from his perspective it seems that the Lord has walked away and abandoned them as a people. He feels under the judgment of the Lord and he doesn’t understand it. He feels like the Lord is treating them like His enemies rather than His children. Sheep are pretty helpless creatures. They don’t have sharp teeth, sharp claws, the ability to run fast or any of the other natural defense mechanism. Their thick wool become their defense. But when they are readied for slaughter, their wool has been harvested and they are naked and defenseless. That is the way the writer felt, vulnerable and weak, open and exposed. There was nothing he could do to change his circumstances, nothing he could do to protect himself. And in that state of mind he wrote this Psalm. He calls out for the Lord to wake up and help. Next time you feel this way, call out to the Lord in your time of desperation.
The Arnold Journey 