Presenting ...
... a weekly letter of encouragement.
Singapore
March 27, 1996
Good Morning!
EVER FEEL ABANDONED BY GOD?
- Your prayers seem to go unanswered.
- Evidence of God's working is scarce.
- You and fellow-believers languish while the godless appear to flourish.
Is this God's cruel joke? Or could there be a Divine
reason behind our sense of abandonment?
Is it possible that God, who is intent on teaching us to live
by faith, purposely removes evidence of Himself from us in
order to strengthen our faith? What quality of belief is required
when His documentation is everywhere present?
Our faith is in its purest form when, amidst scant evidence for
the existence of God we still choose to believe.
This was precisely Job's experience: Seemingly abandoned by God,
and having sustained great personal loss, he exclaims,
"Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him...I
go forward but He is not there, and backward, but I cannot perceive
Him. But He knows the way I take and when He has tried me I shall
come forth as gold...He performs what is appointed for me..."
(Job 13:15; 23:8, 10, 14a)
A person who elects to walk with God in those bleak periods of
spiritual desolation is indeed a lethal instrument in the hand
of God.
Consider C. S. Lewis' perspective from his writings in "The
Screwtape Letters". In the following monologue Satan
is coaching his protégé Wormwood:
"Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never
more in danger than when a human looks (around)...a universe from
which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why
he has been forsaken, and still obeys."
As a fellow pilgrim, may I ask you: "HAVE
YOU RESOLVED IN YOUR SOUL TO FOLLOW THE MASTER, WHETHER THERE
IS EVIDENCE OR NOT? WHETHER HE BLESSES YOU OR NOT?
Of such a person God is well-pleased! (Hebrews 11:6)
I trust you are having a great week!
Dwight Hill
© Copyright 1996 Dwight Hill. Unlimited permission to copy or use is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.
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