My God, My God, Why Have You Forsaken Me? with Pastor Ryan Braley

Some questions crack the heart wide open. We sit with the most jarring line in Scripture—“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”—and refuse to rush past it. I share a fresh loss, the strange numbness that followed, and the ordinary moment that finally let grief speak. From Jesus’ Aramaic cry to an old voicemail in a dark car, we trace how honest lament moves us from denial into deeper presence.

Together we explore the Psalm 22 backdrop, why tidy explanations often fail the hurting, and how despair can act as a doorway rather than a dead end. Drawing on Kierkegaard and Jürgen Moltmann’s Crucified God, we challenge the image of a distant, unmoved deity and consider divine solidarity—God with us not just in theory, but in the raw places we would rather avoid. We revisit Elie Wiesel’s Auschwitz scene and ask where God is when the world breaks. The answer we lean into is not a neat syllogism. It is a Presence found on the gallows, at the cross, and in the valley of the shadow.

This conversation won’t hand you a quick fix for suffering. It offers something truer: permission to cry out, to feel what you fear, and to find that God does not abandon the abandoned. If you’ve stood at the edge of the abyss—mourning a parent, aching over a fractured relationship, or carrying questions that won’t resolve—this is a companion for the road and a blessing for honest lament.

If this resonates, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs language for their pain, and leave a review so more people can find this space of courage and comfort.

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