Where Is God When I Need Him?

by Cherie Hill

Do you ever feel like God is no where to be found? Have you ever poured your heart and soul out to Him, only to be left with nothing but silence? Does it ever seem that every time you take a step of faith, you are faced with something that contradicts it? Have you ever felt like God should have been there and He wasn’t; He could have helped, and He didn’t? The question we must ask ourselves is not, “Where is God?” but, “Where is our faith?” (Matthew 8:25)

We make choices in life every moment of every day, and we have to make a choice as to whether we’re going to trust God…or not. There can’t be any “if, ands, or buts.” If we make the decision to trust God, we must understand clearly that faith does NOT walk by sight. We will always experience doubt in the midst of our faith, but we must make sure we do not live a life where we are experiencing faith in the midst of our doubt. We must be determined to believe God without limits, without time frames, and without fully understanding His ways. God has His own schedule, His own agenda, and we can be certain through His Promises that His plans are for good. (Jeremiah 29:11) So we must trust Him, regardless of what we see, think, or feel. That’s walking by faith. In the face of fear and despair, we must keep on believing God. That’s the faith that never fails.We can often times be calling out to God to speak to us, and overlook the fact that He has spoken to us. If we go to His Word, we will always find God speaking to us; in this particular situation, trying to understand why God is not showing up in our lives, we can look to the Death of Lazarus. Although so many have heard this Gospel account, very few understand the heart of the message. In this miraculous event, we find ourselves so overcome by Jesus’ power, in raising Lazarus from the dead, that we overlook the incredible message that applies to our lives in our times of need. In John 11:1-44 (NLT), we find Jesus out of town, and His friend Lazarus who lived in Bethany is very ill. But Jesus declares that Lazarus will not die, and He foretold that this very situation would give people another opportunity to believe in Him. You can imagine how confused His Disciples and the others must have been. What if God said the same about your current struggle, “Don’t be concerned, this is going to give you another opportunity to believe in Me.”

Now, before they went to Lazarus, Jesus declared that Lazarus had in fact died. And He tells His Disciples that although Lazarus is dead, He will go and wake Him up. I don’t know about you, but that situation had to be just as confusing as the situations we face. We wonder, “What in the world is God talking about? What is He doing?” Most of the time, we can make no sense of God’s ways, until we see the end result. Jesus tells His Disciples that He is glad he wasn’t there, because it would give Him the opportunity to bring God glory. Jesus gave these Disciples hope, for the moment; that is what God’s Word does for us. His Word gives us promises, confident hope, for the moment; so that we are able to take the next step of faith.

So, we find Jesus arriving, and being met by Lazarus’ sisters, who believed that, if Jesus would have been there earlier, their brother would not have died. Our faith is no different, most of the time. We decide that God is late; He missed the opportunity to help us in our time of desperation and need! Many times, we look back at our situation, sometimes in anger, because we believe we did have faith, we did believe, but we feel God let us down. Now, before Jesus raises Lazarus, we find Him, weeping. Why was He weeping? It was over the lack of faith. It grieved His heart that those closest to Him believed that He had let them down, that He had failed them. Jesus weeps for you. He weeps that your faith will not fail. (Luke 22:32)

The one statement that is striking as Jesus performs this miracle is: “Didn’t I tell you that you will see God’s glory if you believe?”(John 11:40) He is saying the same to you, in your situation. “You will see God’s glory, if you will only believe.” But, we must clearly understand that “believing God,” doesn’t put time limits on Him, nor does it tell Him how He is to do something in our lives. When we’re trusting God, we’re trusting, that His ways, are better than our own. We’ve got to keep focused upon His Promises that say, His plans will bring about greater glory than we can imagine. Never, did the Disciples, Lazarus’ sisters, or the crowd, believe Jesus was going to raise someone from the dead! But God, does the impossible. Don’t ever forget that in your own life. He can do far more than you can ever hope for or imagine. (Ephesians 3:20)

It is our trust, in God, that brings us through the most difficult times of our lives; so that we too, can see His glory. And rest assured, although He may not show up when you think He should, He will show up, and it will be right on time!

Prayer: Heavenly Father, I pray that You will fill me with hope through Your Promises. I pray that You will strengthen me to face the uncertain and unknown with courage. Lord, help me to trust in You, regardless of what I see and feel. Help me to keep focused upon You, knowing all things are possible when I place my confident trust in You. Father, I step out in faith, believing with all my heart, that I will see Your glory as I trust in You completely.

About the Author:
Cherie Hill is the author of Be Still: Let Jesus Calm Your Storms, and an Amazon.com Shorts Bestselling author in the Christian genre. She has a BA in Psychology, a Biblical Counseling Certificate through the AACC, and is continuing studies through the Moody Bible Institute. Cherie is the founder of ScriptureNow.com Ministry that brings the Word of God and prayer, into over 30 countries around the world everyday. (reaching over 100,000 people every year)
Cherie brings instructive and uplifting teaching of the Word of God across the world through the “SpiritWaves™” audio ministry on EzraWebRadio.com and GloryStar Satellite Radio, with a subscriber base of 11 million people.
Cherie’s podcast, “FaithSteps” ranks consistently in the top 100 Christian podcasts in the world on GodCast 1000.