When it seems like God isn’t there

Monday 4th April

Jeremiah 17.5–18

Ps 70, 77

Hebrews 9.1–14

John 9.18–end

Psalm 70 and 77

This life we live is not easy. There are wonderful delights, great joys, much beauty, deep love…but in this broken world, and in our human state of brokenness, there are, inevitably, also times of deep pain, confusion, frustration, despair…

These are not good things, and we know they pain God’s heart as well. But – some good can come from them also. There’s a strange paradox in this life as well – that ‘when we are weak, then we are strong’, and that His ‘power is made perfect in weakness’, and that He does not forget the sorrows of His people. And, it’s often, paradoxically, that in these times of distress, when we, as the Psalmist does, cry out to God, when we stretch out our hands just wanting to be comforted, when we groan, when our spirits grow faint, and we question whether God will reject us forever, or whether his unfailing love has vanished, or his promises have failed – that in our desperation, our questioning, our doubts, our longing – we are so desperately in need of God, that there, in that place of anguish, we find him.

Maybe He doesn’t always show up in a big and obvious way – and maybe, sometimes, instead, he requires us to show up: he requires us to have faith anyways – because he is good. He is there. No matter what our circumstances, no matter how we feel. He is still there and he is still the same. As the Psalmist chooses to remember back to the time when God was so evident to the Israelites, to remember the past miracles and mighty deeds, so too, must we acknowledge the bigger picture – the past evidence of God’s power, and also his future plans which we do not know, nor can aspire to fully understand. As the Psalmist says, ‘your ways, God are holy’. His ways are higher than ours, his thoughts higher than our thoughts.

And we must have faith: in the wonderful times and in the darkest times. We will have

both – our lives will change. But God remains unchanged. The same good God when we feel good and can see his work in our lives is the same good God when we don’t see him or hear from him or feel him.

Lord, “do not delay” in revealing yourself to us. “But may all [we] who seek you rejoice and be glad in you; may [we] who long for your saving help always say, “The Lord is great!’ Amen.

Kendrah Jespersen