Veroni's Views

All of us have our own experiences of lockdown, and opinions of the justification for it as well as on the various restrictions imposed on us, and the manner in which it is done, and enforced.  In the last week someone expressed intense distress and loneliness that brought her to the edge of depression.  Social media are full of comments.  Of course, we may also still have to deal with many other challenges in our lives.

I want to suggest to you that the most important question we need to ask is “Where is God in all of this?”  I assure you that He has not suddenly withdrawn from the world to watch from afar what is happening here. Remember that He said “Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you” (Hebrews 13.5.   

But where is God in all of this?

Matthew 14 (and Mark 6 as well as John 6) tells of an interesting event.

Jesus had sent his disciples on ahead of Him to cross the lake.  They ran into a severe storm.  He came to them, walking on the water.  Matthew writes that “When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. ‘It’s a ghost,’ they said, and cried out in fear.”

The disciples had just witnessed the compassion Jesus had on the crowds, so much so that He multiplied the fish and the bread and fed more than 5,000 people.  It seems to me they should have been expecting Jesus to come to their aid.  Yet, when He came, they immediately concluded that it must be a ghost.  Obviously they were not expecting Him.

Jesus encourages them:  “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.”  Their lack of faith remains, so that Peter says “Lord, if it’s you, tell me to come to you on the water.”  He is testing the ghost, you see.

Peter bravely steps out of the boat, only to sink when he sees the wind.  Jesus saves him, but in amazement at the lack of faith in Peter and the other disciples, He says:  “You of little faith.”

What if the disciples were expecting Jesus to show up to help them?  Would they not have been less anxious and welcomed Him into the boat?  Peter would have been spared his rather humiliating little experiment in faith.

I think the greatest obstacles to their faith were the reality of the storm, and the unexpectedness of Jesus’s arrival. 

We often suffer unnecessary stress because we focus on the storm and do not expect Jesus to be anywhere near.  He is there!

He often operates in a surprising way.  This may be in a change in circumstances, through a person from whom we would not expect it.  Mostly by changing our own attitude.

George Beverly Shea sang “I looked for Him in the heart of a friend and He was there….It’s so simple, yet so wonderful, any moment anywhere, just look for Him and He’ll be there.” 

This is not to say we deny the existence or intensity of the storm, it’s just that we know Jesus is in our lives, and that we expect Him to intervene in our behalf.

Where is God in all of this?  What is He doing?  What is He teaching me?  What in me does He want to transform?

Let us pray:

Father, we thank you that you are never far from us.  Help us to see you in the many ways you have blessed us, and to expect you to show up in sometimes surprising ways as you work in our lives.  In Jesus Name, Amen.