Where are you, God? Have you ever blurted out those words? I know I have! I would suspect that many of you also had times in your life and in your faith-walk when you questioned God’s presence in your life. Sometimes it’s in those times of great adversity when we ask that question; other times it might be when you try to talk to your kids about God and they have a hundred questions you can’t even begin to answer. Maybe for some of us, there have been times that we just feel that God has abandoned us. Unlike Job, who never lost his faith, despite losing his wealth, his family and his position in life, we may find ourselves sitting on an ash-heap of unimaginable circumstances asking that very question: where are you, God?
A few years ago, I spent the summer as a chaplain intern at Methodist Hospital and the Minnesota Masonic Home. I remember having conversations with several people who were in hospice about their feelings of anger at God’s abandonment in the midst of their suffering. One woman in her sixties had pancreatic cancer and was given a month or two to live. She talked to me about the God questions that were troubling to her. She had always been a good person who went to Mass every day and helped people in the community. She always ate healthy and exercised daily. She asked questions like: I’m a good person, why did God let this happen to me? Where is God? What did I do that God let this happen to me? Her God image had been shattered. She slowly began to work through those God questions and confront her own faith in God. It was amazing to see her faith grow as she began to recognize all the times God had indeed been truly present in her life. Her faith had been restored as God began to show her all the times in her life that He had been with her. The more she was able to remember and see God in her life before the cancer, the more she was able to see God in the midst of her cancer.
Do you totally trust God in all aspects of your life? Sometimes we forget those times in our lives when God was so visible to us. This week, I’d challenge each of us to really look for those God moments, times when we knew without a shadow of a doubt that God’s hand was at work in our lives. Remember those moments, maybe even write them down. Then, ask the question “What are you up to now in my life, God?” And, if you are still and you listen, God will reveal Himself to you in ways you were not expecting.
Here’s a great song that came out a few years ago, called “What Faith Can Do.” It’s a song about the power of faith and how faith can literally change everything we are facing in our lives. Check it out.
Pax,
Pastor Carol
1 comment:
I was browsing through your blog and felt compelled to leave a comment. My mom was diagnosed with stage 4, inoperable pancreatic cancer in June 2010 and was expected to have not more than a year to live. I have to say that faith HAS made all the difference, and our family has received many blessings over this past year, including the miraculous healing of my mom's cancer. After 7 months of my mom being off chemo and feeling fine, her doctor finally determined that her cancer is dead, and he doesn't not know how this happened. There is no medical cure for what my mom had. My 6-year-old daughter heard the song "What Faith Can Do" on the radio recently, and when the words "I've seen miracles just happen" were sung she piped up and said "We had a miracle!" We praise the Lord for what he has done!
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