It seems to be our condition when in distress, we may believe God has moved away from us.
Read Psalm 88:1-2
O Lord, God of my salvation, I cry out day and night before you. Let my prayer come before you; incline your ear to my cry!
The remainder of the Psalm describes what the author sees of his terrible plight, all the while God is not present and must be beckoned or requested to engage.
Read James 4:7-8
Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
How do we reconcile these two experiences with God?
First, setting our expectations.
It may be often unsaid or unacknowledged, but it is pretty easy to gain agreement that “God is good, all the time. All the time, God is good” while our life’s events are good, meaning that outcomes are pleasing and favorable to us. So, when things aren’t “good” by that definition, we must reorient our worship to the Origin of what is good, not worshipping the outcomes that are good.
I love my grandchildren all the time. I may not feel that love or express it when they misbehave yet they are the object of my love, so I do love them and my emotions in the moment are swayed by only the circumstances.
We continue to love and acknowledge our love for God even when circumstances don’t go “our way”. We can acknowledge our emotions, discouragement, disappointment and even fear – that is all very real – yet we lean into the truth of God’s word and ask him for the faith we need to believe when we struggle.
Next, there is the shock and reality of sudden and traumatic things that happen in our lives.
When on an ocean cruise earlier this year, my wife had a medical condition that required our disembarkment and transport to a local hospital – which was in another country, and we didn’t speak the language. By the way, she has recovered. As the events are unfolding and decisions are suddenly being thrust upon us, I found the adrenaline in me rise and my thoughts racing through all the alternatives and choices we must make now and the implications of each. Did I pray? Was I mindful of the goodness of God? My attention was set on my spouse, who was experiencing a great deal of pain. Yet, there were moments I said a prayer, mostly in my head and a few times we prayed together, but it really wasn’t until I was quiet and separate from the chaotic events that I took time seeking to reflect and reach out to God looking for a more complete and deeper experience with him.
Jesus, while in the Garden of Gethsemane, was racked with emotion in that moment, petitioning the Father if there was an alternative to fulfilling their mission. Jesus anticipated the shock and reality of what he was about to experience in the coming hours. And yet, as he was in a place, separate and quiet, he had the presence to reorient his prayer and will to align it with that of the Father’s.
It can be incredibly difficult to be fully present in recognition of God’s great love for us while we’re experiencing a traumatic event.
I didn’t say “impossible” or “never’. It does seem more likely for a faithful Follower of Jesus to have thoughts and brief petitions of prayer while in the craziness of the moment and not until some space and time is available, a more complete processing of the events, what might be God’s will and a recognition of his love becomes more possible and present.
As I’ve watched the lives and development of many people’s faith, this seems to be a common trap for many of us. In Acts 5:1-11, Ananias and Sapphira sold a piece of land after the new church body pledged to give all their liquid assets to the apostles to care for their community. The couple lied about the sale price and gave only a portion of this to the apostles. This couple seemed to love and worship their assets more than the Provider of the assets.
It’s a common challenge – particularly for Followers living in the developed world – to slip away from our object of worship being the Lord and transfer this to the blessings he provides. Many of us have come to faith through a series of events that created a crisis in our lives, until we reached a “moment of truth” and surrendered our lives to Jesus. Often a new Follower experiences relief from carrying the weight of guilt for so long, but otherwise life’s circumstances are pretty much the same as before entering the baptismal pool. Even the relief from guilt and the elation of joining the family of God is enough for the new Follower. As he/she walks in faith and experiences a continuation of God’s blessing, it becomes the slippery slope that we must acknowledge, confess and repent from, so as not to become enthralled with worshipping the blessings rather than the Blesser.
The Psalm we read at the start unpacks the experience we may often have when under great pressure, are in the midst of our trauma and attempt to reach out to God. The James passage isn’t in conflict with the Psalm and actually provide the way back to a healthier orientation in our relationship with God. James uses verbs like “resist” when it comes to dealing with the evil one and “come near” and “submit” as our actions to move closer to a God who never moves away from us.
Deuteronomy 31:6 declares that God will “never leave or forsake you” and the writer of Hebrews quotes this in Hebrews 13:5.
It is a truth we must hold on to, acknowledging that we may get knocked down in a life circumstance. Don’t be too hard on yourself that you may have gotten drawn into a moment. Attempt to find that quiet, separate place, move close to God and live into the truth of his Word.
Richard Bahr 