Look down from heaven and see, from your lofty throne, holy and glorious. Where are your zeal and your might? Your tenderness and compassion are withheld from us. -Isaiah 63:15, NIV
Some days, we want Him close. We need Him closer and closer; we can’t live without Him. Our minds transform His presence from a desire, a flimsy whim, into a need that needs to be satisfied now. A day without Him, a day outside of His house, is a deadly fulminante for our souls.
I just picture Him smiling, dancing with us, carrying us, and lightly stroking our cheeks as we quietly slip into His dreams…But He knows those dreams won’t last long.
For a moment, He departs. And we get into boatloads of trouble. Some of them –maybe ninety-nine percent of the time- we brought it upon ourselves. (Ah, puny human sure likes to get himself into trouble!) Other times, it…happens. We hit rock bottom. We feel failure.
One day, we start up our business; the other day, we’re calling unemployment as we liquidate our business assets. One day, we find the most wonderfulest person in the world; then, we’re in the middle of a cheating scandal. One day, we’re aimlessly walking our dog around the block; the next moment, we bleed. Our hearts bleed. Our knees bleed.
And this is the moment when our mind asks…where?
Where are You when I was hurt?
Where are You when I was lost?
Where are You when I was teased and bullied?
Why didn’t You show up!?!?
This is the moment when our mind takes out the Sally Jesse Raphael-esque laundry list of dirty laundry because we feel desperate and angry and disappointed because He promised us He’d be with us forever but he had to leave for a moment and life didn’t make sense and that He had no business leaving us and…
I think the brain gets tired with so much sensory overload. I believe it shuts down worse than that time we got that brain freeze. It can’t take so much pain-we weren’t made to take so much pain! It can’t compute pain; it just can’t…
It just can’t realize that He was always there. Like footprints in the sand.
When we liquidated our assets, He cleaned the window and saw the pain.
When we faced the divorce, He prepared the papers because He already knew it wasn’t meant to be.
When we bled in the alleyway, He was the paramedic, taking us to the ER.
He was there, we couldn’t see him; our hearts He will feel with peace. Yes, He will fill with peace indeed…