The Lord is with you when you are with him. If you seek him, he will be found by you, but if you forsake him, he will forsake you. – 2 Chronicles 15:2b
The world we live in is broken. There are wars, famines, hate and other bad things going on which cause people to question “If there is a God, why doesn’t he stop this…”
They question whether He exists or not and then come to the conclusion that if He does why doesn’t He do something. Most people expect or think that God is some sort of magician who can wave his wand or make people do things they don’t want to do in order to stop the bad things that are happening.
Even if their thinking make sense to them, there is a problem with it. God didn’t make us as robots who follow his every command – he gave us free choice and a will. We get to decide whether or not we want God in our lives. If we don’t want God in our life, then how can we expect to fix things. In other words, if God isn’t in your life how can He be involved in the situations you are in? If you don’t want him in your life, then how do expect other people who don’t want him there either to stop doing bad things?
God is good and a lot of bad things that happen are the results of what people do to people. It is so very easy to blame God or ask where God is and then expect Him to fix things but how can He do this if you don’t let him into your life? We forget that God is there hoping and waiting for us to let Him but if you don’t there is not much He can do. Sometimes all it takes is for to acknowledge Him so that you will know that it was Him and not you who brings about a satisfactory resolution.
In every situation that occurs, God will be who He needs to be. Those who have abandoned God will only see as someone Him who is harsh and cruel because He allows bad things to happen and doesn’t do anything about it. There will be others who believe He doesn’t even exist. Whatever they think their view will be negative that it may result in hostility towards anybody who does allow God into their life. Where is God becomes more of a challenge then a search.
The answer to “Where is God?” is that He is right where you left Him or where He needs to be. He is the one who never leaves, we are. In some cases, God will allow bad things to happen in order to bring us back to Him, but He is never the instigator. It is or us or it is the evil one – it is never God. Sometimes, God will do something about a bad situation and afterwards He wants us not to say “Where?” but “There!”
All it takes to find God is a little bit of faith and a whole lot of trust to believe that no matter what happens it will bring glory to Him and the knowledge that everything will be all right in the end.
Originally published February 2019