When God Seems Absent

(from Songs of Healing)

Many thousands of years ago, before our Lord Jesus went back to the Father, he promised us that he would never leave us. He promised that he would be with us until the end of the age. And so, we believed that the Lord is with us in Spirit here now and for always. However, haven’t there been times in our lives when we actually felt his absence more intensely than we believed in his abiding presence? Haven’t there seasons an end when we actually sensed we were going all these, alone. And don’t we sometimes feel that our Lord of wisdom and counsel seems to have locked himself away behind divine silence.

What we perceive as a divine withdrawal leaves us wondering when this dark cloud shall lift? When pain and discomfort will no longer pile upon each other? While such times last, we realize the power that despair yields upon us so that we say, “my God, my God why have you abandoned me?”

We are no strangers to suffering and the sense of abandonment it brands painfully on our spirit. So when suffering and illness walk us to the edge of despair this God with us, this son of God who promised to stay with us till the end of time He hold us, He reigns us in and binds us to hope.

Yes, many times he does seem to bind us with such fragile treads of small comfort. Yet, we do not dare to cut him loose and away. For Jesus our Lord, no stranger to suffering himself is compassionate. So, what is this silence all about? I wish to believe that the silence is the time when the Emmanuel actually suffers with us and praise in us in words beyond all understanding.

(How shall I sing to God? When life is filled with bleakness. Empty and chill, breaking my will. I'll sing through my pain, angrily or aching, crying or complaining. This is my song, I'll sing it with love...)