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Apr 30, 2024 18:00pm

Hello, God. Are You There?

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Discontent.

It was in late December, and I was reflecting back on my year when I felt this gnawing feeling like the year hadn’t gone the way I thought it would. Worse, it was a feeling that God hadn’t been faithful in an area of my life. You see, I had been praying about this area and felt like God was silent with this prayer request. My frustrations grew, and I wondered if He cared about this tender area.

I tried to engage him in conversation: Hello, God. Are you there? It’s me, Amber. Remember this thing I have been praying about for a really long time? What say you?

Silence.

To show how much I had petitioned Him about this area, I flipped back to the beginning of my prayer journal to remind God of all the times I had prayed about it . . . but something else got my attention in those early pages of January. You see, those prayers were written during one of the lowest moments of my life. They followed a three-hour-long surgery in which several things were being addressed. I had known about this surgery for nearly a year and had been praying intentionally about it. But when surgery day came, I was not prepared for the complications and pain that accompanied it. The doctor had nicked one of my organs, which caused another layer of issues and healing. Friends, I don’t easily cry, but I am pretty sure I cried every day for a week and many days after that. I was a weepy, emotional mess. I wondered if I would ever be “normal” again.

I poured all those hard emotions onto the pages of my prayer journal. I knew God was there . . . I just couldn’t sense Him amid the pain. Several times a day, I thought, Are you there, God? Do you hear me? Where are you in all this?

Though I felt completely isolated, my daily Bible readings reminded me I wasn’t the only one who struggled to sense God amid the pain. In fact, the Bible is full of people who were hurting . . . people who felt alone in their battle . . . and people who wondered where God was in their struggle. Yet, God appeared to be silent.

Psalm 77 is a perfect example. In the first half of this psalm, the psalmist is feeling all the feelings––desperation, distress, and doubt. He yearned for the Lord to move in his life and respond to his petitions. More than anything, he wanted to feel God and His love. He wanted to know that God still cared about Him and His situation.

Then, he did something right there in the middle of the psalm to jumpstart his doubting heart: he forced himself to remember.

He forced himself to redirect his thoughts to all of the times God answered prayers . . . all of the times God performed miracles . . . all of the times God saved His people. And right there, despite his pain and petitions, he did something remarkable and powerful: He praised God.

Amid the silence of God, the psalmist praised God. Mind you, nothing had changed. He was still questioning where God is in his situation, he was still despondent, and he was still struggling. But, he reminded himself of something that is so easy to forget when we walk these dark valleys: God is faithful.

In the last half of this psalm, our psalmist downright preached to himself about God’s faithfulness. By the end of the psalm, he acknowledged something about the way God works in our lives: “Your way went through the sea and Your path through the great waters, but Your footprints were unseen.” (Psalm 77:19, HCSB)

Sometimes, friends, God’s way takes us through the tumultuous sea where we can’t see His footprints. Many times, we feel alone and adrift in this sea. And many times, we wonder where God is in this battle to stay afloat.

But something special can also happen in these waters: God grows us.

When it’s dark, and we can’t discern where God is, it’s those moments when He calls us to walk by faith, not by sight. It’s those deep waters that test us like no other. It’s the seas of life that can call us to fully surrender to an unseen God. They expose the fake and faltering within us and force us to the crux of the matter: Do we trust God?

You see, He knows what’s ahead of us, and He uses these seas to prepare us for it.

Even though my heart was full of questions, my perspective started to shift when I reflected back on this stormy season in my life. As I continued to flip through my prayers over the course of the year, the Holy Spirit highlighted how many times God answered my prayers. Sometimes, it was a “yes.” Sometimes, it was a “no.” And sometimes, it was a “not now.” But, it was then–in looking back upon those tear-stained pages–that God gently spoke to me: If I was faithful then, I am faithful now. You have to trust me with the trials I allow to happen. You just don’t see the whole picture yet.

Looking back helped my questioning heart to look forward in faith.

Friends, if you too have been like me and wondered, Are you there, God? Look back. Look back on your history with God. When did He answer a prayer? How did He show up? How did He speak life into you? Compile your evidence. Write it down. Use it to preach to yourself when you struggle the most to see or feel God. It will be the balm your hurting heart needs to continue trusting Him.

When you can’t see His footprints, trust His promises. Because if He did it then, He’ll do it again.

It’s what love does.