Where Is God?



A street in Tagajo, Miyagi prefecture.

As I read the reports and view the pictures of the tragic loss and suffering in Japan following the earthquake and tsunami along with fear of nuclear danger, I am stunned. To see buildings and vehicles swirling inland on the rushing flood and to know that in the wreckage are hundreds of human bodies is almost incomprehensible.
Where is God? If one is among those who are overwhelmed by the disaster, that might well be the question.

It certainly may feel at such a time of anguish that God has forsaken us. David, the psalmist and “a man after God's own heart,” cried out in his deep distress, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? Why are You so far from helping Me, and from the words of My groaning? O My God, I cry in the daytime, but You do not hear; and in the night season, and am not silent.” (Psalm 22:1, 2) Here was a godly man who did not “deserve” the trauma in his life, but circumstances closed in on him until he felt that he had been abandoned by his God. But he had not been left alone; he would see the light again and feel hope once more.

Even Jesus, being made one of us, suffered that crushing sense of loss. On the Cross, he too cried, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Mark 15:34) He had not been left alone either, but would rise again in triumph three days hence. Can it be that this experience of feeling abandoned is not uncommon to the human condition, and that we must wait through it if we would see what is on the other side? May God give me grace, should my turn come, to affirm boldly, “He has not abandoned me.”

MaryMartha

Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Photo:  AFP/Kazuhiro Nogi  3/14/11