Where are you, God?
I find myself asking this question time and again as I watch in horror the cruelty humanity is capable of. The wars and unrest that appear rife across the globe are distressing to witness. Grief is pictured on every single face of the survivors, as they experience the destruction of their normality. The lives of these people have been irrevocably and violently altered. Meanwhile, I sit in the peace and tranquillity of my home in Western Australia, with mixed emotions of helplessness and anguish, flavoured with a little guilt and deep thankfulness for the privilege of my life being so far removed from the frontlines.
To avoid feeling overwhelmed by the weight of tragedy, while simultaneously retaining my compassion, I developed some gratefulness rituals which helped me to recognise that my only responsibility is for my tiny sphere of personal influence with the importance being its ripple effect onto others. I have written about this in a different blog on my website. These gratitude practices have helped to ground me in faith and hope so that when I ask: Where are you, God? I’m not doubting His presence, because I know He’s there, I’m just wondering where He could possibly be amid so much evil.
It’s been a long time since I’ve asked the question, Why, God? Experience has taught me this is the wrong question for several reasons, not least that my limited human intellect is highly unlikely to understand God’s divine reasoning anyway. History shows us that humankind’s desire for power and domination has produced too much senseless violence, so I would much rather cling to the fact that I know God is in the fray and go searching for Him.
I have been able to see Him:
- In the bunkers of Ukraine, as citizens hunker down hiding from the shelling taking place above them, where they light candles and pray. They recognise that the evil is not from their God but that their protection, comfort, and support is.
- In the action of 85-year-old Yochoved Lifshitz, the Israeli peace activist known for carrying medical supplies into Gaza and carrying sick Palestinians out for medical aid. She was beaten and captured, but on her release, she testified on behalf of her captors, saying she was treated well once she was held hostage and as she walked away, she laid her hand gently on the masked, heavily armed Hamas captor and uttered the word, ‘Shalom’. Peace.
I see God at work in stories such as these and I know that there are many more, some of which will remain unknown except to the people involved.
Faith is belief in that which we cannot see; Scripture illustrates this continually. With this in mind, I ask: Where are you, God? Then I go searching, believing that He remains present.
My responsibility is to fuel my faith and the faith of those around me, by its ripple effect. Once again, I’m reminded that by focusing on what I can control, I will not become crushed by the constant news of all that appears out of control. Faith helps me to accept that there are times when I simply cannot make any sense of the senseless and that’s okay. I must focus on my small area of influence and be of service there.
