Sunday, November 21, 2010

Where is God?

A while back I was thinking about all the times we ask, “Where is God?” 

“Where is God…when bad things happen?”
“Where is God…when illness lingers?”
“Where is God…when relationships break down?”

Philip Yancey put it best in the title of his book, “Where is God when it hurts?” 

That’s what we often want to know, isn’t it?  It doesn’t matter what “it” is.  The only thing that matters is that “it” hurts.  And we want to know where God is.

Then it occurred to me: Why do we only ask “Where is God” when things go wrong?  Why do we only seek his presence in the painful moments?  Why do we not also ask, “Where is God?” during the good times?  Why do we not look for God in good times?  Why do we only look for God in the painful, difficult, stressful times of life? 

It makes me realize just how incredibly selfish we really are. 

Think about it: Don’t we ignore God most of the time, erroneously thinking we have things under control?  And as long as we have food on the table and money in the bank we are comfortable with putting God on the waiting list while we attend to more “important” matters? 

But when things go wrong and our life is out of sorts and we realize that we aren’t in control, we immediately start asking, “Where is God?  What kind of God would allow this?”  We ignore God when things are going well, then put all the blame on him when things go bad.

And then we have a day once a year where we say, “Let’s give thanks to God for all he has blessed us with in the last year?” 

How incredibly selfish of us.

What if we start asking, “Where is God?” when things are going well?  What if we started looking for God in the good times and not just the bad?  Instead of wondering, “What kind of God would allow this?” when things go wrong, what if we asked, “What kind of God would bless us in spite of ourselves?”

Jesus said God causes the sun to rise and the rain to fall on the righteous and the unrighteous. (Matt. 5:45)
Paul said God loved us and saved us even while we were still sinners. (Rom. 5:8)

What kind of God would do this?  A God who is filled with compassion and grace, who is slow to anger and abounding in love and faithfulness. (Ex. 34:6)

This Thanksgiving, let’s make the decision to start looking for God every day and in every situation.  Not just when things go wrong in our lives.  Let’s stop using God as our backup plan when our plans fail.  Let’s start looking for God and the ways he is working in our lives in the good times and not just pointing the finger at him in the bad times.

Instead of it being a question of defeat, loss and failure, let’s turn the question, “Where is God?” into a positive question filled with anticipation and joy.  Let’s look for God in the daily things like the sunshine and rain, as Jesus pointed out.  Let’s look for the ways God is blessing us every day, instead of only thinking of him when things go wrong.

You just might find that he is more involved in your life than you realize.  And when things do go wrong, you will know that he is near because you have spent time seeing him in all areas of your life.