When God Seems Absent

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Ed. Note: In a land and time far, far away, where the only people that existed were troglodytes (OK, not that long ago . . . but you may be that old if you remember the beginning of that song) I was planning on including this article in the newsletter because of how touching and inspirational it was to me. These are excerpts from a message entitled, Life is Hard, but God is Good by Joni Eareckson Tada, Preaching Today Tape 209, as edited and retold by a pastor friend of mine, Jim Hammond, which was then edited and retold by the Perihelion.

Ever since the fall of Adam and Eve, all humans have experienced times when it seems like God is absent.  Two of the reasons for this are that (1) by our sin we have removed ourselves from God (Isaiah 59:2) or (2) the pain caused by the fallen state of our world clouds our view of God. Sometimes God seems absent and  like  Job,  we   will  not  understand  it  this  side  of  heaven.

. . . Joni had her accident.  Suddenly God didn’t seem to be good. 

Joni Eareckson Tada became a quadriplegic as a result of a diving accident when she was a teenager.  She tells of a visit she had with a high school friend at a High School reunion.  Her friend’s name was Jackie.  They were friends before her accident.  They had played on the Parkville High School field hockey team together.  Joni was a center forward, and Jackie was her defender.  Joni was captain and Jackie co-captain of the team.  They were remembering the Baltimore County Championship game and how they had lost in the last quarter in the pouring rain.  They got into the back of the bus in the rain and listened to the clunk, clunk, clunk, of the windshield wipers.  Some of the girls were crying.  Joni and Jackie being Christians approached the loss in a unique way.  They wiped their tears away as one began to sing, then the other joined her.  “Man of Sorrows, what a name, for the Son of God who came.”  They were glad they had a savior who understood their heavy hearts.

Only a couple of months after that experience Joni had her accident.  Suddenly God didn’t seem to be good.  God didn’t seem to be close.  Suddenly God seemed to be absent.  Joni says she was heaven bent on finding answers.  She wanted to believe in the goodness of God.  She needed reasons for her paralysis.  Over the years, to make sense of it, she began to formulate a mental checklist of some of the reasons for her paralysis.  Here is part of her list:

1.         I have learned that all things fit together into a pattern for my good and God’s glory.

2.         Hardships have forced me to make decisions about God.

3.         Suffering has done a job on my character.

4.         Being paralyzed has made heaven come alive in a way that makes me want to live better on earth because I know full well more is coming in the next.

5.         My thought life sure has been jerked right side up.

6.         Suffering has made me a lot more sensitive to people who are hurting.

Summarizing, Joni noted, “God is more concerned about conforming me to the image of Jesus Christ than He is about my comfort zones.  God is more interested in my inward character than my outward circumstances.  These are some answers to my questions about God’s goodness, but these aren’t the best answer.”

For that matter when God seems absent good answers for these feelings aren’t enough.  The checklist feels dry.  No matter how many answers Joni came up with she knew there were still times when these cognitive answers were not enough!  Joni came to know that the best answer is a person.

One night as she lay in that hospital bed for a check-up, she had been watching a movie, The Birdman of Alcatraz.  Watching, she suddenly identified with Burt Lancaster behind the bars.  She was in a paralysis prison and she was feeling claustrophobic.  “Lord, I can’t do this.  Even all the good you have in mind,  all  the  things  I’m  learning,  don’t  outweigh  the  pain.”

That was the night Jackie sneaked in to see Joni after hours because she had gotten off work late, past visiting hours.  She hid behind the couch in the visitors’ lounge until the lights went out in the hallway and the nurses’ station cleared.

While Joni was wide awake wrestling with her emotions after watching The Birdman movie, here came Jackie crawling on the floor toward Joni.  Joni saw her through the guardrail of her hospital bed.  Joni hissed, “Jackie if they catch you they are going to kick you out of here!”

Jackie replied, “Shhhh,” and lowered the guardrail of the hospital bed, then proceeded to climb right into bed and snuggled next to Joni.  She took Joni’s hand and raised it up so Joni could see that they were holding hands; this was the only way Joni could know Jackie had even taken her hand.  In that sacred moment, they faced each other and began to sing again, “Man of Sorrows, what a name, for the Son of God who came, ruined sinners to  reclaim.  Hallelujah, what  a  Savior.”

This met Joni’s need like nothing else.  Joni didn’t need another answer, she needed a person and with that person, God wasn’t absent anymore.  

You don’t need to be a quadriplegic to struggle with the feelings of abandonment by God.  Have you ever wondered why God seems absent?  Christ knew what those feelings were like.  He himself stepped into those feelings as he hung upon the cross.  He said, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me.”  To a world feeling those thoughts, God sent his son, the Man of Sorrows.  He understood.

Joni remembered all these things about Jackie just before her high school reunion.   The occasion that brought all these memories flooding back was when she discovered news about Jackie from another friend on the Hockey team.

“Is Jackie going to be there?” Joni asked.

“Joni, didn’t you hear the news?”

“What news?”

“Oh, it happened last night.   You knew that Jackie and her husband separated, didn’t you?”

“Yes, I had heard that,” Joni said.

“Well, you know her teenage son, Joshua?  He’s been having a lot of problems lately, bad grades in school, hanging around the wrong crowd, dabbling in drugs.  He made a profession of faith some time back, but he’s wandered away from the Lord.  Last night the evening news reported that Jackie’s son was found in a burnt-out fire.  He set himself on fire, and his dad’s house burned down.  He left a suicide note in the mailbox.  Joni, didn’t anybody tell you?”

“No.  No, I didn’t know that.”

Joni tried to call Jackie but couldn’t get a hold of her on the phone.  Since she couldn’t reach her she immediately wrote her a letter.

He set himself on fire . . . 

Dear Jackie,

Ken and I are planning to be in Baltimore soon, and I’m hoping that we can see each other then.  If so, Jackie, I would want to hold your hand as you once held mine in the hospital.  Do you remember when you crawled into bed with me?  I would softly sing to you as you once sang to me, “Man of Sorrows.”

I don’t know what else to write but that.  May the Man of Sorrows be your comfort.  And as in the hospital, I would hope you would feel what I felt and what I still remember to this day – peace profound and a soul settled.  Peace, Jackie, not answers, not reasons.  Do you remember that night 30 years ago?  Jackie, I have never forgotten it.

When Joni and Jackie did finally spend some time together, Jackie said, “Joni, I’ve got this cross around my neck.  It’s one that my son gave me.  Every time that I start to feel desperate, like I can’t make it, like I’m in a prison, then I hold onto that cross.”

Jackie’s holding the hand of the One who is present.  Sometimes you might need a reminder when you can’t feel the hand you are holding.  He is the one who says He will never leave or forsake us.  Even when Jackie didn’t have all the answers, she found comfort in the one person who IS the answer.

God’s answer to our suffering is Himself.  Are you holding onto the cross?

Now I know what you’re probably thinking, “Not once during the whole article did you say, ‘I know what you are thinking,’ like you usually do.” That is because I discovered I Cor. 2: 11 which says, “No one can know what anyone else is really thinking except that person alone, and no one can know God's thoughts except God's own Spirit.” So we need His Spirit within us to even begin to know the mind of God, which is much more important than knowing what someone else is thinking anyhow!

 

All praise to God…He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us.          2 Cor. 1:3-4

 


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