Where are you...
For my Prophets class this week, we were asked to reflect on our prayers from the week prior and attempt to articulate how we see God respond.
Three brief prayers, thoughts, or just drawn out ‘sighs’ quickly came to mind:
Where are you God?
More? Really more? More pain, war, hatred in the world?
‘And it was very good.’
The first was birthed from exhaustion and overwhelmed feelings; the second from the continued brokenness I see locally, nationally, and globally; the third were the only words I could muster as I saw my friend marry his beautiful bride with the mountains of Colorado as a backdrop.
It’s not hard to see and feel the tension of the good and bad, the light and the darkness, throughout my life. When in unhealthy places, I can say that I am drawn to believing God is somehow uninvolved – the distant and unengaged landlord. Yet even in the darkest of places, I can not shake that God came here to dwell, that the narrative and direction of Scripture is continually one of God coming to His good creation. This reality, partnered with the choruses in the Gospels that the kingdom is near and the Lord’s Prayer - where we are bold to say ‘Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven’ - humbles me to echo the words of Jacob that morning by the river that ‘Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it.’
So yes God is in this place, in all things, and at work – my awareness is more than often limited and bound by current experience as I am unable to distance myself from my context and circumstance.
God is continually responding to the prayers of His people - working in, through, and with His good creation - and some times, even responds directly.