Finding God's PresenceSýnishorn

Present Even When Hidden

“Recall a difficult time in your life. Did that time lead you to be closer or further away from God?”[1]

Recently, my family discussed this question over dinner. We each had examples of both.

This week, we’re focusing on ways to seek and engage God’s presence. The Bible teaches us to expect to experience difficult and devastating times in our lives. It also teaches that we may feel like God is absent (at best) or has abandoned us.

Anyone who prays the Psalms will experience an apprenticeship in crying out at the apparent absence of God amidst betrayal by friends, poverty, war, and sickness.

“If God is good and powerful, why doesn’t He ___________ (heal that cancer, stop that abuse, etc.), and where was He when ___________ (Jerusalem was sacked, the earthquake hit, etc.)?”

Sometimes “darkness veils His lovely face.”[2]

We can’t talk about engaging the presence of God without acknowledging that, many times, the God who is always present feels like He’s absent.

Many men have experienced the unspeakable traumas, loss, and hardship of human life. All of us have seen rampant injustice and faced life's disappointments in this world. Our lives quickly become marked by wounds and scars.

God seems absent, yet He really is present.

Here are three action steps for men to take:

1)Lament! Take your pain, anger, hurt, and hate to God and seek Him in the midst of it. There is nothing we cannot pray (e.g., Psalm 137:1-9).

2)Remember! God doesn’t promise us an easy life. Times when He seems hidden are normal (e.g., Psalm 22:1-31).

3)Surrender! God often uses seasons of His seeming absence to refine us and prepare us for His work (2 Corinthians 1:3-7).

God’s hiddenness is not the same as Him actually being absent or abandoning us. Our Shepherd is always nearby. Keep listening and obeying.

I’ll give the final word to C.S. Lewis. One demon says to another:

“Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do (God’s) will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys."[3]

Prayer: “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” Show me where You were when _______ happened? Show yourself! Help me! If You don’t, I’m lost. Give me the strength to keep following. Keep Your promise and renew in our day Your powerful deeds. Bring about justice and be merciful to us. Amen.

Reflection: Think about some of the hardest times in your life where God seemed most absent. How did God use those times?

[1] Taken from the 200 Conversation Cards for Christians game

[2] From the hymn My Hope is Built on Nothing Less (The Solid Rock)

[3]The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis