August 29th, 2017

My hand with my daughter, Emily's.

"Sometimes I wish that God were more obvious," is something I have heard more than once from folks I have known.


God isn't in the business of being in a hurry. That is something I think all of us know a little something about.


When I consider all that we confront each day, I do begin to wonder why it is that God isn't more forthcoming.


Christ seemed to also have this encounter with the Creator when asking if he had been "foresaken."


In class one day in Seminary we were discussion God's viability and presence in response to violence and pain in the world. "Why doesn't God stop or prevent these things from happening?"


The discussion that ensued concluded with this, "I don't know," although with some of the comments and a few outbursts you would have thought God was conducting a test between saints and sinners.


The reason I even write about this is because lately I have had several friends question not just God's existence, but why things seem to continue to happen.


The presence of God for any of us must be met with an invite. Just as we often sit on the sidelines, thinking someone else will handle this, perhaps the shadowing of God is not so much about choice, but empowerment. It's not about tests, but rather answers.


Although my questions for God seem to become a litany that would keep all of Google busy, my intuition seems to lean more to the idea that God is always present. It's up to us to identify and point to what we see or know to be God. Rather than declaring where God seems absent, we should point out more of where we encounter God. Perhaps then there will be less declarations of "where is God," and more, "this is what God did!"


Stay in God's grip!

G. Todd Williams (c) 2017