Where is God When I Need Him?

         All of us are very familiar with the adversity that comes our way as the result of our own foolish choices, and for this adversity we have no one to blame but ourselves. Oh, we try to place blame somewhere else, but we know the truth.

Most of us are also aware of the kind of adversity that comes our way through no fault of our own. If, per chance, you are not familiar with this kind of adversity, hang around a while and you will get acquainted with it, very personally acquainted with it. That is a promise! For reasons beyond my limited knowledge, some people experience far more of this kind of adversity than others. Strangely, most of the people who fall into this category are the people we would least expect. Sadly, many of those who manage to escape this kind of adversity become arrogant, truly believing that their obedience has protected them.

As you might imagine, the people who, through no fault of their own, experience this extreme  kind of adversity eventually begin to wonder if God has forgotten them, if He has simply abandoned them, leaving them to fend for themselves. They attend church, hoping to find encouragement in Biblical truth; instead, they find discouragement in religious jargon. They seek out the fellowship of other believers, but instead of finding fellowship, they find rejection. They carefully watch the lives of those who apparently know the “secret” of living free from this kind of adversity, but instead of finding healing humility, they find disappointing arrogance. They pray, earnestly pray, not for relief from the adversity, but for His touch, His felt presence; instead, they experience silence, deafening silence. In the end, the questions loom before them: Has God abandoned me? Where is He when I really need Him? Has He left me to fend for myself? This usually becomes one of the loneliest places on earth.

To be sure, I do not have any answers to these questions, but I do have another question: Could it be that, in spite of what we feel, He is reaching out to us, touching us, loving us, speaking encouragement to us, right before our eyes, but we are simply missing it? He did promise never to leave us, nor to forsake us.

You think about that—

This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent" (John 6:29 NASB).