When God Seems Absent

“Why, O Lord, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?” (Psalm 10:1 NIV).

Ever felt this way? I have. Why is it that there are times when God seems so near and dear, but when the chips are down seems so absent?

C.S. Lewis knew the feeling. Marrying late in life it wasn’t long before his new bride was discovered to have an aggressive cancer. Lewis did what any of us would do in those circumstances, he went to his heavenly Father and pleaded for a miracle. But it was not to be and shortly after they were married, Joy Lewis died. Devastated, Lewis began to journal his feelings. Early in that journal he wrote: “Meanwhile, where is God? This is one of the most disquieting symptoms. When you are happy, so happy that you have no sense of needing Him, so happy that you are tempted to feel His claims upon you as an interruption, if you remember yourself and turn to Him with gratitude and praise, you will be – or so it feels – welcomed with open arms. But go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence. You may as well turn away. The longer you wait, the more emphatic the silence will become. There are no lights in the windows. It might be an empty house. Was it ever inhabited? It seemed so once. And that seeming was as strong as this. What can this mean? Why is He so present a commander in our time of prosperity and so very absent in time of trouble?” [Lewis, C.S., A Grief Observed, (Bantam Books, New York, 1961, pp. 4-5)]. Catches it perfectly doesn’t he?

The writer of this Psalm is struggling with those feelings. Why does God sit idly by and watch the wicked run roughshod over the righteous? Where is God when the arrogant wicked plot and plan against those weaker than themselves and abuse them? Where is God when the suicide bomber blows up a school bus full of children? Where is God when terrorists crash planes into building in New York? Where is God when radical Muslims capture and behead innocent workers who are trying to rebuild their very own country?

Tough questions. I wish I had the answer. I don’t. What I do know however is this: God is right there. He sees it all and He is keeping records. Look further down in this Psalm, “13 Why does the wicked man revile God? Why does he say to himself, ‘He won’t call me to account’? 14 But you, O God, do see trouble and grief; you consider it to take it in hand. The victim commits himself to you; you are the helper of the fatherless. 15 Break the arm of the wicked and evil man; call him to account for his wickedness that would not be found out.” (Psalm 10:13-15 NIV).

I don’t know what crisis may have you calling out to God today. I don’t know why sometimes God seems so painfully absent when our pain is great. Perhaps it’s like Lewis says later in his journal, “You can’t see anything properly while your eyes are blurred with tears . . . And so perhaps with God. I have gradually been coming to feel that the door is no longer shut and bolted. Was it my own need that slammed it in my face? The time when there is nothing at all in your soul except a cry for help may be just the time when God can’t give it: you are like a drowning man who can’t be helped because he clutches and grabs. Perhaps you own reiterated cries deafen you to the voice you hoped to hear.” (Grief pp. 53-54).
What I do know is this. God does hear your cries, “You hear, O Lord, the desire of the afflicted; you encourage them, and you listen to their cry.” (Psalm 10:17 NIV). And rest assured of this truth, even when you can’t see Him, He sees you. I think it was Charles Haddon Spurgeon who first said, “When you can’t see His hand, trust His heart.” I encourage you to do that today. You won’t be disappointed.