“Oh that I knew where I might find him!” Job 23:3a

Sometimes in our Christian walk God seems so close that we can feel His presence, at other times He seems a million miles away. This is Jobs complaint during an inconceivable time of testing in his life. He goes on to say; “Behold, I go forward, but He is not there; and backward, but I cannot perceive Him: On the left hand, where He doth work, but I cannot behold Him: He hideth Himself on the right hand, that I cannot see Him…”

Why does God do that? Why does He seem to “hide” Himself at times from His children? Why does He let us go through very sore trials and heartache in this life? Why does it seem at times that He is nowhere to be found when we need Him most?

I do not pretend to know the answers to these questions. But I do know that He always does what is best for His children. “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.” {Romans 8:28}  “…He has an uncontrollable power. None can stay His hand. Whatever the Lord pleased that did He {Psalm 135:6}, and always will, for it is always best.”- Matthew Henry

When my children were toddlers they often thought that they were big enough to wander around by themselves at the store or the mall. Sometimes I would let them do just that {though I was always watching them just out of sight}. After a minute or two they would look around and realize that I was no longer in sight and they would begin to cry out. I would step out from behind a shelf or display and they would run back to my side or climb into my arms. Again I do not claim to know the mind of God or His purposes. But maybe He hides Himself at times so that we might come to the realization that we need to stay close to His side and that we need Him every minute of every day?

I profited from the following comments from Matthew Henry concerning this passage:

“Those that keep the way of the Lord may comfort themselves, when they are in affliction, with these three things:

I. That they are but tried. It is not intended for their hurt, but for their honour and benefit; it is the trial of their faith, 1 Pt. 1:7.

II. That, when they are sufficiently tried, they shall come forth out of the furnace, and not be left to consume in it as dross or reprobate silver. The trial will have an end. God will not contend for ever.

III. That they shall come forth as gold, pure in itself and precious to the refiner. They shall come forth as gold approved and improved, found to be good and made to be better. Afflictions are to us as we are; those that go gold into the furnace will come out no worse.”

“Are we sick or sore, impoverished and stripped? Are our children removed by death or our friends unkind? This is what God has appointed for us, and many such things are with Him.”

I am also reminded what the poet said;

“Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne,–
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above His own.”

The Present Crisis, James Russell Lowell

I am sure that He is closer than we sometimes think.

Brother Shawn