When God Seems To Have Gone Missing

What do I do when it seems as if God has been whisked away and left me high and dry in the dust? My tears pour out creating mud to wallow in. I cry out, "Where is thine hand which has held mine for so long?" The warmth I once felt from your words as if coming straight from your mouth have faded into an echo. Why do my prayers sound as if I'm only making friends out of the furniture while the walls laugh back saying, "Where has your God gone when it seems you need him the most?" It seems as if it has been so long since a hallelujah has rolled off my lips since these hands have raised in praise, since my fears have been squashed under the soles of his feet since these lies from the tongue of a snake did not feel like Medusa turning this heart into stone. My whole body tremors in this valley of dry bones. There is no Ezekial in sight to raise this body from the dead with new flesh. A smoke of fear has arisen in my mind, doubt fills my nostrils and reminds the heart of even darker days to come. Sin and lust ride on the horizon with guns locked and loaded, and the nightmare of giving up leaves paralysis deep in my chest. The question still remains, "Where are you lord!?"

I Cry Out Day and Night Before You

A Song. A Psalm of the Sons of Korah. To the choirmaster: according to Mahalath Leannoth. A Maskil of Heman the Ezrahite.

88 O Lord, God of my salvation,

I cry out day and night before you.

2 Let my prayer come before you;

incline your ear to my cry!

3 For my soul is full of troubles,

and my life draws near to Sheol.

4 I am counted among those who go down to the pit;

I am a man who has no strength,

5 like one set loose among the dead,

like the slain that lie in the grave,

like those whom you remember no more,

for they are cut off from your hand.

6 You have put me in the depths of the pit,

in the regions dark and deep.

7 Your wrath lies heavy upon me,

and you overwhelm me with all your waves. Selah

8 You have caused my companions to shun me;

you have made me a horror to them.

I am shut in so that I cannot escape;

9 my eye grows dim through sorrow.

Every day I call upon you, O Lord;

I spread out my hands to you.

10 Do you work wonders for the dead?

Do the departed rise up to praise you? Selah

11 Is your steadfast love declared in the grave,

or your faithfulness in Abaddon?

12 Are your wonders known in the darkness,

or your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?

13 But I, O Lord, cry to you;

in the morning my prayer comes before you.

14 O Lord, why do you cast my soul away?

Why do you hide your face from me?

15 Afflicted and close to death from my youth up,

I suffer your terrors; I am helpless.

16 Your wrath has swept over me;

your dreadful assaults destroy me.

17 They surround me like a flood all day long;

they close in on me together.

18 You have caused my beloved and my friend to shun me;

my companions have become darkness.

Those who have been on the walk of faith for while may seem as if I am preaching to the choir. Many have felt this and are among philosophers and theologians alike, and they have deemed this subject the hiddenness of God. It is a topic that most Christians struggle with at some point throughout their race. This fight may be in the past now, a current struggle, or a future coming. Isn't that a thought that brings gladness, that you may feel abandoned in the future? The Psalms are filled with these types of passages. The main question that comes from hiddenness to the Christians is "How long, O lord?" I must preface this by stating that this writing is for those who know that God is there but seems missing, not those who seem as if silence must mean inexistence though it may lead to that feeling or thought.

A simple visit to the hospital to see the good ole doctor. Anxious at the thought that something is wrong with my body, as if there is an infection somewhere. It could be a cancerous growth that has sprung from too much of a substance. It could be a little bit of food poisoning or something that is really not in need of much attention. But I won't know what the diagnosis is until I get a check up. I put my name down at check in and the receptionist says, "He'll be right with you." I am then a patient in a waiting room simply trying to stay patient long enough to hear the receptionist say the doctor is ready, so why does it seem like God acts in a similar way? Where is this the great physician I've heard so much of in the past, hasn't he healed so many. We grow impatient at those thoughts.

Impatience is the key to this kind of puzzle. Not like a key to open a lock but similar to the lock and key model of an enzyme. It is the substrate that catalyzes and starts or accelerates the problem. This problem usually has many symptoms and leads to others, similar to a domino effect. We wait for the answer to our circumstance. We wait for the diagnosis. We wait for the trouble to subside. We wait, we wait, and we wait some more. Why does this waiting have anything to do with God and why should God even keep me waiting? The interesting justification of waiting is that waiting shows us what we think of the person who keeps us waiting. In this, God shows us what we truly think of him, and what we do while we wait. What will you do while you wait?

"There is a big difference between suffering injustice and keeping still. We should suffer. We should not keep still."- Martin Luther.

We stand as a people group used to moving or keeping one foot in front of the other. We press forward. It may seem as if we should stay still but the funny thing about God is he enjoys pushing us into the uncomfortable. The Holy Spirit causes us to continue to press on and push through. So we are not charged to wallow in our pain but to push through it. Let's take a look at the prodigal son parable. The son went to the mud with the pigs and was treated like one. He realizes the possibility that he can get up out of the mud and maybe his father will take him in. I've seen people in the mud sitting there because they love the mud. Only pigs love the mud. Children of God are not pigs. We must try to climb out of the mud as the son did. It's time to start the journey back to the father.

The example of the prodigal son more deals with sin in our lives and how God can seem hidden or gone away from us because of it. A definition of sin can be anything the blocks or pushes us away from God. It covers both the sin of committing wrongdoing or a sin of complacency. So first we must get ourselves out of the mud.

If we wait without working, the calling is lost. We are called by God to progress the Kingdom. To be stewards of the world. To carry out the ministry of reconciliation. To glorify God in all circumstances. If we become pessimistic in complaining, we can lose sight of who God is. We must by all means keep focused on hope. Faith in a basic sense is hope being stretched out over a period of time. It is the state in between God's promise and his fulfillment.

Faith coincides with vision. It's the object of faith that makes faith grow and expand, not simply the faith itself. Most of the time I feel impatient when I put God under a microscope. I try to make him grow by adding a little bit of prayer here and there, maybe throwing in a couple of bible studies and a little bit of community, but the problem started with a microscope. I should look at God through the telescope. The wide expanse of His glory revealed in His creation, the simple enjoyment of the presence of good experiences that bring gratitude, or a rigorous study with a cup of tea all to see the depth of His grace and goodness. All these pierce through like a knife. In reality, I am the one in the microscope. God is the one looking at me and studying the intricate pieces while trying to get rid of the infections that are harming my health and growth. So faith is seeing God as the one who is in control through his promise first and then his fulfillment.

We saw the lightning flash in the distance but soon we shall feel the thunder. We feel the wind swirling as it increases in strength and on the horizon rides the tempest in its wake. We see the silver lining upon the clouds in the distance, may we soon feel the warmth of the sun's rays. We saw the death on the cross but soon may we see a white horse.

Sometimes we must recognize that you may not be walking in trying to find God but he is the one trying to find you. I really enjoy Francis Thompson's "The Hound of Heaven" where God is the one chasing him down. He hears the footsteps and when he finally turns around after running away from them for so long he truly sees that this is the one thing that he has desired for so long. I especially enjoy the last bit of the poem: " Rise, clasp My hand, and come!’ Halts by me that footfall: Is my gloom, after all, Shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly? ‘Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest, I am He Whom thou seekest! Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest Me.’"

So the application here is this, the design should be to look for the mud that you might be in, stand and shake the muck off, start the journey back home, and you may find a welcoming companion to tell all that has happened to you on your journey upon the Emmaus road. That can be the steps to overcoming the problem of finding God again when he seems to have gone missing.