GOD, WHERE ARE YOU?
ON MOST DAYS, MOST OF US pretty much navigate life on our own. But as soon as we experience something that shakes us up and shatters our normalcy, we instantly become more aware of who we can call upon for support and comfort.
Think back to the last time you went through a personal ordeal. Did you consider how God would help or if He was even available? Did you think He might be busy with more important things of a grander scale than your mini crises? Or maybe you thought you were being tested by God, so you decided to wing it quietly on your own. But over time, an insuppressible cry for relief, resolution and results began to surface in your consciousness and form itself into four words: GOD, WHERE ARE YOU?
The question ‘where’ assumes that God is distant, unavailable and inattentive towards us. The first time God asked, ‘Where are you’, Adam and Eve were hiding from Him (Genesis 3:9-10). But asking God that question, when His omni-presence transcends all geographical boundaries and time zones, shows our desire for proof and evidence of His presence. People can disappear, become dispassionately distant or fall silent in our times of need, but not God. We must see evidence of His intervention, we need to know that we matter to Him, we want Him in the immediacies of daily life.
But since we cannot actually see God or visualize Him leaning against our doorway looking compassionately at us, or sitting on the couch with us, or when we are crying in the car so no one would see, we can apply the eight verses in Psalm 121 as a spiritual compass. They are perennial truths assuring us of God’s presence and intimate interest in our lives even when we think He is either unreachable or no longer interested in our misery.
To the question God where are you, Psalm 121 offers four key truths:
GOD IS WHERE YOU ARE.
1 I lift up my eyes to the mountains - where does my help come from?
2 My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.
We look at things that are already present because we cannot see things that don’t exist. We say look out, look around, look up to find things that exist around us. When the Psalmist (the writer of Psalm) says “I lift up my eyes to the mountains” – the mountains didn’t appear because he looked up. They had been there before he even noticed them.
Mountains are dramatic metaphors illustrating the scale and permanence of God’s presence. That was how the Psalmist saw God: that He was as real and permanent as the immovable mountains around him. In other words, we just have to pivot our attention from where we are to where God is. At the same time, mountains are visible whether we are at the base, in the valley or figuratively, in the lowest trenches of life. Like mountains, God towers over humanity.
It is important to note that the Psalmist was not looking for God, he was looking at God. His question is not: where is God but where does my help come from? ‘My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.’ This is exactly the same for us. In the place of your troubles and crisis, God is right where you are.
GOD IS DIRECTING YOUR STEPS.
3 He will not let your foot slip - He who watches over you will not slumber;
4 indeed, He who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.
If mountains are metaphors of God’s presence, footsteps illustrate our response in obedience to Him. It is not a question of going left or right, but a matter of seeking God’s leading and following His promptings. Whether it concerns decisions and choices about relationships, financial management, health and well-being, career or work-related dilemmas, when we don’t see changes in our situations, we assume God is asleep and needs to be stirred.
Jesus’ disciples thought the same when they faced a sea storm, even though they had just come from a time of seeing the Lord’s healing miracles (Matthew 8:1-16). In their state of panic, they mistook Jesus’ lack of action as a lack of care. This is a common misperception of God drawn from human relationships. What they failed to notice was that Jesus had strategically positioned Himself where the rudder was and where He could potentially pivot the boat in a different direction.
God is love and being faithful is His character. We can always count on God to be the rudder that directs our life course every day, any day, all the time. God is never off-duty watching over us, and never too busy for any of us.
GOD IS SHIELDING YOU FROM HARM.
5 The Lord watches over you - the Lord is your shade at your right hand;
6 the sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon by night.
Metaphorically, God is an overhead shield, a covering and a canopy that protects us against visible perils (as in day), as well as unknown and hidden ones (as in night). This is the truth on our side: the Lord is our constant shade.
And we can trust that God is God. He who sees the end from the beginning does not make preemptive moves like we make preemptive moves to avoid failure or making mistakes. God knows, from the start, what hurts us before we are even aware of how a decision, an action or inaction (by us or someone else) will throw us off course.
GOD IS WATCHING OVER YOU.
7 The Lord will keep you from all harm - He will watch over your life;
8 the Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and for evermore.
The iteration of ‘the Lord will’ belabors the point that God’s love for us is a decision He makes on His own - independent of our response. This is the assurance and confidence we have: that God will (not may) respond to us all the time. He is responsive to all who love Him and all who turn to Him for help.
God watches over us with the same measure of reach and attention for all. Psalm 139:7b-10 says this about God’s reach: ‘I can never get away from Your presence! If I go up to heaven, You are there; if I go down to the grave, You are there. If I ride the wings of the morning, if I dwell by the farthest oceans, even there Your hand will guide me, and Your strength will support me.’
Get this, God keeps a close watch over us to ensure that we do not just GO through challenges but we also GROW through them so that we may grow from strength to strength.
So the next time you ask the question, God where are you, assure yourself with the four statements of truth below.
