Where is God?

I almost died last night.

           

At first, I didn’t realize what would have happened. I angrily honked my horn at the speeding driver who blew through his stop sign. Then I started to shake as I envisioned the scene that would have ensued if I had gone – as was my right and as I had thought about doing – without waiting to see if he had stopped. If I had turned directly into his path, he would have barreled into the driver’s side door full on. Whatever the consequences would have been, they would have not been good.

I started shaking, crying, and thanking God.

He turned my mind back to the trip from Brazil we had just returned from. When I was there, I kept silently asking God, where are you? I don’t see you at work. I see street kids who beg for their survival, I see the underfed and overworked horses, I see that although there is much to enjoy about Brazil, there seems to be also be so much grief and sorrow. On our last day there, on the way to the airport, we saw a corpse, recently struck and killed by a car, covered with a blanket, his bloody curls the only thing sticking out. Sinful, sorrowful, heartbreaking things are happening here and all over the world like in Brazil. Where is God in all of that?

           

I graduated from Bible College. I graduated from seminary. I know the correct answers, the answers that are true regardless of my feelings. But I needed God to speak to my heart. I asked over and over again for us to get a glimpse of where He was at work. I didn’t think that prayer had been answered, especially when one of the last images I left Brazil with was the man struck dead by the side of the road.

           

But experience last night left me renewed and refreshed. It was like God whispered to me, this is where I am, working and redeeming in individual lives. Savings lives from accidents, healing hearts from wounds, drawing the lost, lonely and brokenhearted to Myself. As His children, everything that comes into our lives has been sifted through His love and sovereignty, the good and the bad. I think it is easy to look at the world as a whole and wonder where God is, but He is most clearly seen in the stories of our lives. That is one more reminder to me of His personal care for us.

Disclaimer: this is only my little perspective. There are many books that are exhaustive in covering why bad things happen, and where is God when He doesn’t seem to be there.