Where is God These Days?

-- The Rev. Coleen Lynch

Laws we don’t agree with, bombs going off in civilized countries, horrible car accidents, senseless murders, too many people we don’t know doing things that upset us. Where is God in all this seeming chaos?

Like all wonderful things about God and his word, we find the reassurance of his presence in Romans 8: 38. “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, not anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord”. So what do we make of this for our real lives and our every day struggles to keep believing?

First and foremost we are reassured that God knows what’s going on and does care. No matter what is happening in your life or mine, he is fully engaged with us. As Christians we have the ultimate advantage of eternal life. We are ultimately and infinitely okay because, whether in this life or the next, God is with us. Small consolation you say, if one is suffering unjustly. Yet that is the very good news we need to hear from our Lord.

When the weirdness of life seems to be overtaking our thoughts, it is the wisdom of the Lord that reminds us that we can never be separated from his love. The challenge for us is to ask where God might be found in this particular situation and to actually pay attention to his presence. We would like God to respond as we would have him do. We want God to make people do what we want, not necessarily what God wants. We very easily pay lip service in prayer to “Thy will be done”. More often than not we mean, our will be done.

If you are unhappy about any of the events in the world and especially in your own life, ask God to reveal to you what you need to learn about his presence.

What in fact is God saying about same sex marriage? Every single human being is created in the image and likeness of our loving Creator. What can this mean for someone who is gay? How does that challenge those who are not gay?

What about people of different faiths? What do we really know about Islam and those who call themselves Muslim? Are we willing to find out more about other faiths’ beliefs and how their adherents live faithfully? All Muslims are not terrorists just like all Christians are not homophobic, racist bigots.

Sickness and death are integral to the human condition, even when it is no one’s fault or directly someone’s fault. It is into these very horrid situations of pain and upset that God’s love comes to us in the reassuring presence of Jesus. When we need comfort, guidance and especially hope, we need but to ask and the Lord really does provide. It may be a card, a phone call, a touch of the hand, a passage in the Bible, a quiet moment in nature, a familiar hymn in church, something takes hold of us and touches us in and under to reach our anxious hearts and bring us momentary peace. This is God’s love. This is God’s love in Christ Jesus our Lord. This is the Holy Spirit giving to each of us what we need at any given moment of our daily life.

How do we access this great and wondrous love? – ask and it will be given you, search, and you will find, knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened…how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him (Matthew 7:7, 8, 11b).

God bless you.