where is God?

You asked me tonight what to do - what to do about your pain. And I struggle, because I don’t know what to tell you when God is not in the picture. The only way that I have survived the pain in my life, and walked through it, is because I turned to God. And that’s an understatement… if you want to know the truth, it was more like I was in a dry and craggy wilderness, with boulders, a great empty sky, and tiny, gravelly rocks pressing into my skin– and I just threw myself to the ground, and cried out to God from the depths of my being. Sometimes, I didn’t believe that he was even there. Sometimes, I was angry at him. Sometimes, there was so much pain I could not even speak a word.

And it seemed like an eternity that I lay there – my pain overwhelming me. I could not move. I could not speak - my soul simply crying out to the God who created me. But God – he met me there. Not a physical presence, but he was there. He is here.

And that’s all I have to offer you. That’s all that I can tell you. God is real. God is love. God is longing to have a relationship with you.

“In my distress I called to the Lord, and he answered me.

From the depths of the grave I called for help, and you listened to my cry.

You hurled me into the deep, into the very heart of the seas, and the currents swirled about me; all your waves and breakers swept over me. I said, ‘I have been banished from your sight; yet I will look again toward your holy temple.’ The engulfing waters threatened me, the deep surrounded me; seaweed was wrapped around my head. To the roots of the mountains I sank down; the earth beneath barred me in forever.

But you brought my life up from the pit, O Lord my God. When my life was ebbing away, I remembered you, Lord, and my prayer rose to you, to your holy temple.

Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs. But I, with a song of thanksgiving, will sacrifice to you. What I have vowed I will make good.

Salvation comes from the Lord.”

Jonah 2:1-9.