John Calvin Commentary Psalms 44:23

"Awake, why sleepest thou, O Lord? Arise, cast [us] not off for ever." — Psalms 44:23 (ASV)

Arise, O Lord! Why do you sleep? Here the saints desire that God, having pity on them, would finally send them help and deliverance. Although God allows the saints to plead with him in this babbling manner, when in their prayers they desire him to rise up or awake, yet it is necessary that they should be fully persuaded that he keeps watch for their safety and defense.

We must guard against the notion of Epicurus, who imagined for himself a god who, having his dwelling in heaven, delighted only in idleness and pleasure. But as the insensibility of our nature is so great that we do not immediately comprehend the care God has for us, the godly here request that he give some evidence that he was neither forgetful of them nor slow to help them.

We must, indeed, firmly believe that God does not cease to regard us, although he does not appear to do so. Yet, as such an assurance is of faith and not of the flesh (that is to say, is not natural to us), the faithful freely express this contrary sentiment before God, which they perceive from the state of things as it appears to them. In doing so, they release from their hearts those unhealthy affections which belong to the corruption of our nature, as a result of which faith then shines forth in its pure and original character.

If it is objected that prayer (than which nothing is holier) is defiled when some perverse imagination of the flesh is mixed with it, I confess that this is true. But in using this freedom, which the Lord grants us, let us consider that, in his goodness and mercy, by which he sustains us, he wipes away this fault, so that our prayers may not be defiled by it.