How are you getting along in the world today? Many of us struggle with the seemingly constant negative input from the world around us. Things like the cost of living, the government, crime, illness, relationship problems, problems in our homes, problems at our work, and problems in our churches. All of these things cause us to wonder from time to time if life is really worth living, is God still there, does he still care, or has he abandoned us to our misery.
A friend wrote me these words in a recent note: “God is just not working in my life anymore; in fact, I am not really sure where he IS.” I believe that many people have asked this same question through the years, some have discovered the answer, some have not.
If you are struggling with this question, let me suggest that God is just where he has always been. James makes this point in James 1:17, “Every good and true thing is given to us from heaven, coming from the Father of lights, with whom there is no change or any shade made by turning”. The point of this verse is that God never changes, he remains the same, and he is constant in his love for us and his requirements to have a relationship with us and his willingness to be there for us!
I would suggest that if there is a change in the relationship, in the satisfaction or feelings of security we have with God, then it is not he that has changed. There is an old story about a husband and wife that are driving down the road in an automobile, each seated on “their side” of the front seat. The wife looks at the husband behind the steering wheel and says, “You know when we were first married we used to sit next to each other.” To which the husband replied, “I never moved.”
Now there are any number of reasons which seem valid, to move from the center of the seat to the side of the seat and put some distance between you and your husband. In the same way, there are many reasons which seem valid for the changes that take place between where you once were and where you now are in your relationship to God. No matter how valid those reasons may seem, the fact remains that it is you who have moved and not God!
I’ve tried to think of a nicer, kinder, a more gentle way to say it, but I just can’t seem to find one. If there has been a change in your relationship and you are asking, “Where is God when I need him?” I’ll tell you where he is, God is exactly where he has always been, where you left him; waiting for you to move back over beside him.
Satan is good at what he does. He knows how to drive wedges between us and those we love or some time slip dividers in a little at a time which separate us from the one we really would like to be with. He stops communication, he breaks down relationships, and he puts up barriers to keep us from trusting and believing that God is there for us and wants only the best for us. The writer of Hebrews tells us in Hebrews 13:5b, “for He (God) has said, I will never leave you, nor forsake you”.
There are people who “drop out of church”, just stop attending with the Saints. They stop worshipping God, stop praying to God, stop singing his praises, because they feel hopeless or they feel abandoned. The question I need for you to think about today is, “if you are getting nothing out of your relationship to God, nothing out of your local church, who changed? If it’s you then perhaps it is time for you to move back. God said it this way through his Apostle John in Revelation 2:4-5, “But I have this against you, that you are turned away from your first love. So keep in mind where you were at first, and be changed in heart and do the first works; or I will come to you, and will take away your light from its place, if your hearts are not changed.”
Russ Lawson