Where is God?

Friday, September 23, 2022

Am I a God who is only close at hand?” says the Lord.  “No, I am far away at the same time.  Can anyone hide from me in a secret place?  Am I not everywhere in all the heavens and earth?” says the Lord.  Jeremiah 23:23-24

There are at least two different ways to interpret the question:  Where is God?  You can be asking about location, in the sense that you want to find God’s presence, either out of curiosity, or, more profoundly, out of need to know you’re not alone in this universe.  The second, and more publicly common way to ask, is the defiance motive…you’re asking about God’s location, or more accurately, his absence during an event that could have been prevented from becoming a tragedy.  It’s asking:  Where was God when my child died?  The first kind of interpretation is a seeker of God; the second is a judge of God.  Truth be told, it could always be both.

Some would deny ever being angry with God.  I’m not one of them…now!  I could never quite bring myself to admit it, but there have been those times.  One of those was when my grandmother died.  I loved Grandma Carrie.  She had a kind face, and was not above slipping a cookie in your hand, even just before dinnertime.  She was a patient sort; married to an alcoholic, she had to have the patience of Job.  When cancer took her from us, I cried for weeks.  As a pre-teen, anger was my emotional response to the grief that told me I would never see her again.  A lot older now, and, hopefully, a little wiser, I realize Russell, the child, was asking the defiant kind of question born of pain:  God…where were you when cancer took my Grandma? 

As a child I had to lay the blame for what was wrong in my life on someone.  Just as Adam passed along his guilt onto Eve, making God the culprit of Adam’s sin and failure for giving him that dangerous play toy, God was also to be my whipping boy.  He should have been there…and He wasn’t. 

Now, as an adult, with the blessing of a rearview mirror, the guidance of God’s Spirit through God’s Word, plus a whole lifetime of experience, the question I have no longer focuses on the whereabouts of God.  Life and God’s gentle guidance have taught me of His omnipresence in every moment and place I’ve ever walked.  Now the question is more appropriate:  Where is Russell?  Where is Russell’s mind and heart, in relationship to the God who is everywhere, sees everything, and understands every DNA molecule He used to fashion my body, and stamped on my invisible soul?  Mr. Wesley’s question:  How is it with your soul…is the question I now ask in the mirror every day.

For You Today

If you’ve been through some tough living, and you’re tempted to ask the judging question, it would be better to stand facing the mirror.  But if the pain is too great, go ahead and ask God where He’s been…He’s got big shoulders.  My experience is that He will gently remind you that He’s where He’s always been, right next to you, waiting for you to turn….so He can wrap His arms around you.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

Go to VIDEO (read by author)

There are about 2,000 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper on today’s topic, explore some of these: 

In That Day and The Doily

[1] Images:  via Pixabay.com   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©   

Perfect Math

 

Thursday, February 10, 2022

Oh, the joys of those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or stand around with sinners, or join in with mockers.  But they delight in the law of the Lord, meditating on it day and night.  They are like trees planted along the riverbank, bearing fruit each season.  Their leaves never wither, and they prosper in all they do.  But not the wicked!  They are like worthless chaff, scattered by the wind.  They will be condemned at the time of judgment.  Sinners will have no place among the godly.  For the Lord watches over the path of the godly, but the path of the wicked leads to destruction.  Psalm 1:1-6

My brother, Thom, is the math major in the family.  Before he retired he taught young people math skills for over 50 years.  When speaking the language of math Thom sometimes encounters that blank look from his brother.  My math does not enter the lofty realm of quantum physics and such.  Give me 1 + 1 = 2, and I’ll be with you to the finish; if you get much past 3 + 4, I’m (as they say) out the door! 

By contrast, the language of the Primary Psalm is math, simple enough for even me.  And it answers a question concerning “divine earthly retribution” which scholars have debated for centuries.  That question is: 

Does God really bless the good behavior of those
who honor Him, and punish the wicked?

It is tempting to read the Psalm that way and expect immediate reward and punishment.  But that would be to presume we understand all there is to know about God’s timetable.  And that would be a wrong presumption, because there are at least two Scripture passages which point-out how we must not try to put God into a box, by assigning when it is right to hand-out punishment or blessing:

1.     Time was created by God, a sufficient reason to understand why he isn’t constrained by time.  The Creator is always above and beyond the creation.

But you must not forget this one thing, dear friends: A day is like a thousand years to the Lord, and a thousand years is like a day.  2 Peter 3:8

2.    We cannot possibly understand the motives of, and movements in, the purposes of God. 

For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.  Isaiah 55:9

We can always count on God to punish the wicked and lift-up the righteous, but we must constantly remind ourselves to not assume the position of judge over God.  And we must also constantly resist the thought that we know all about what God thinks, or does.  Remember, there are some secret things[1] which God reserves to himself. 

For You Today

For now we must trust God, and look forward to the time when He reveals all to us, which he has also promised:

Dear friends, we are already God’s children, but he has not yet shown us what we will be like when Christ appears. But we do know that we will be like him, for we will see him as he really is.  1 John 3:2

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!  

[1] Title and Other Images:  Pixabay.com   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©   

---

[1] See Deuteronomy 29:29

The Case for Following Jesus

 

Wednesday, September 2, 2020

Then a demon-possessed man, who was blind and couldn’t speak, was brought to Jesus.  He healed the man so that he could both speak and see.  The crowd was amazed and asked, “Could it be that Jesus is the Son of David, the Messiah?”  But when the Pharisees heard about the miracle, they said, “No wonder he can cast out demons.  He gets his power from Satan, the prince of demons.”  Jesus knew their thoughts and replied, “Any kingdom divided by civil war is doomed.  A town or family splintered by feuding will fall apart.  And if Satan is casting out Satan, he is divided and fighting against himself.  His own kingdom will not survive.  And if I am empowered by Satan, what about your own exorcists?  They cast out demons, too, so they will condemn you for what you have said.  But if I am casting out demons by the Spirit of God, then the Kingdom of God has arrived among you.  For who is powerful enough to enter the house of a strong man and plunder his goods? Only someone even stronger—someone who could tie him up and then plunder his house.  “Anyone who isn’t with me opposes me, and anyone who isn’t working with me is actually working against me.  “So I tell you, every sin and blasphemy can be forgiven—except blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, which will never be forgiven.  Anyone who speaks against the Son of Man can be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven, either in this world or in the world to come.  Matthew 12:22-32

Jesus has a habit of saying follow me.  Once those words are in the air they must be answered.  In this short skirmish with the Pharisees, they disclosed their version of an answer; they said, we’re religious professionals – you’re a servant of the devil. 

I would not want to be in their sandals on Judgment Day!

Of course, Jesus made short work of their reasoning.  Why would Satan give Jesus the power to destroy the works of Satan?  Self-destructive personality flaws aside, even a child knows you don’t play both sides of the checkerboard.  The Pharisees were grasping at straws because they had no answer for the miracles of Jesus.

I’ve read stories and watched movies over the years where the plot depended on a leader with a cause.  The leader always issues something of a challenge to those whom he would lead into the battle.  Who’s with me?  C’mon, let’s do this thing; follow me!  When you unpack that little phrase, follow me, it’s always an appeal to the conscience of what is right and what is wrong.  And then, the decision battle is on; it’s time to fish or cut bait.  You either go, or don’t!

Essentially, that is what Jesus says to us.  If you’re not with me, you’re against me.  It’s my natural response to say, wait, let me think about this…isn’t there a neutral corner…I mean, I’m not really against you…I just don’t know about putting all my eggs in your basket. 

And then, Jesus wept.

So, WHY would Jesus be weeping?  Because to make no decision at all is to decide against following Him.  The choice is, follow, or not; anything other than following is a check in the “not” column. 

My father once gave me a task of digging a hole.  About three shovels full later I realized the hole wasn’t going to dig itself easily, so I decided to take a break.  A long break…as in, forget this shovel and dirt thing, and go find my friend Tommy Stubbolo to see if he wanted to play toy soldiers.  That night I ate at my father’s table, dressed in the clothes my father’s money had purchased, and slept in the bed my father had made with his own hands, in the house I didn’t purchase.  I lived in my father’s world, but I had ignored his call to follow him into the hole-digging business. 

There are those who might cut me some slack, allowing that I was only 7 or 8 at the time.  After all, a kid needs to play.  And the hole-digging would have had a much greater collaborative feel to it, had Dad told me why the hole had to be dug.  But he just said, here, Russell; dig me a hole here, about this big, and that deep.  What he left out was…I’m going to plant a new tree you’ll be able to climb on in a few years.  But my father simply said, pick up that shovel and follow me. 

In retrospect, telling me the why of the hole needing to be dug in our back yard, would have set up a possibility that I might judge my father’s wisdom in putting a tree in that spot…or the necessity of a tree at all.  And what does a 7-year-old know about gardening, anyway?  And who is a 7-year-old to judge his father?

And when Jesus says follow me, it’s much more important than digging a hole.

For You Today

Here’s today’s annoying question:  Are you waiting for Jesus to unpack for you just what following Him is all about?  Or have you picked up the shovel?  Just asking.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road today.  Have a blessed day!

VIDEO

Title image Pixabay.com  ∞ Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©

For other posts on Matthew 12 and Following Jesus see: The Pattern of a Life and Mary's Confusion