“Where is your God?”
It’s a haunting question asked by our neighbors in response to our claims for Christianity… It’s the penetrating question asked by many in our world who embrace false religions and idolatry…. And I want to give them a convincing answer! They want to see clear evidence of “the Living God” that we claim to serve! It is a question posed twice in Psalm 42-43 (many scholars believe these two psalms were originally one psalm)…
Here’s what Scripture says in those two psalms…
My longing and desire…
“As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for You, O God! My soul thirsts for God – for the Living God!”
The rejoinder of my neighbors and a needy, searching world…
“My tears have been my food day and night while they say to me all the day long, ‘Where is your God?’”
What I say to myself when I hear their questions…
“Why are you cast down, O my soul? Why are you in turmoil with me? Hope in God! For I shall again praise Him, my Salvation and my God… By day the Lord commands his steadfast love, and at night His song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life!”
But I hear the taunts of a skeptical world asking the question again…
“My adversaries taunt me – they say to me all the day long, ‘Where is your God?”
And again what I say to myself as I hear their taunts and questions…
Why are you cast down, O my soul? Why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God! For I shall again praise Him, my Salvation and my God! Vindicate me, O God, and defend my cause against an ungodly people – from the deceitful and unjust person deliver me! You are the God in whom I take refuge!
And one more time, what I say to myself as I stand looking into a mirror… Self-talk, if you please…
“Why are you cast down, O my soul? Why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God! Fore I shall again praise Him, my Salvation and my God!”
(From Psalm 42-43)
I believe in the Living God! Don’t you? I long for His presence! I deeply desire for Him to display His reality and power in convincing ways to my neighbors, in my nation and around the world! I believe He will! I pray for that! I hope in Him! I believe He will do what He has promised and show His power, love and grace in a convincing way once again, as He has in the past! In light of that I say to myself, “Why are you cast down, O my soul? Why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God!”
