Ever Feel Abandoned By God? Your prayers seem to go unanswered. Evidence of Gods working is scarce. You and fellow-believers languish while the godless appear to flourish. Is this Gods cruel joke? Or could there be a Divine reason behind our sense of abandonment? Is it possible that God, who is intent on teaching us to live by faith, purposely removes evidence of Himself from us in order to strengthen our faith? What quality of belief is required when His documentation is everywhere present? Our faith is in its purest form when, amidst scant evidence for the existence of God, we still choose to believe. This was precisely Jobs experience: Seemingly abandoned by God, and having sustained great personal loss, he exclaims, Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him… I go forward but He is not there, and backward, but I cannot perceive Him. But He knows the way I take and when He has tried me I shall come forth as gold… He performs what is appointed for me… (Job 13:15; 23:8, 10, 14a) A person who elects to walk with God in those bleak periods of spiritual desolation is indeed a lethal instrument in the hand of God. Consider C. S. Lewis perspective from his writings in The Screwtape Letters. In the following monologue Satan is coaching his protégé Wormwood: Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger than when a human looks (around)… a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys. As a fellow pilgrim, may I ask you: Have you resolved in your soul to follow the Master, whether there is evidence or not? Whether He blesses you or not? Of such a person God is well-pleased! (Hebrews 11:6) -Facts of the Matter: Daily Devotionals.
Posted on: Wed, 02 Apr 2014 00:38:14 +0000