Depressing, isn't it? And all that is just if you're reading the front page of the newspaper.
Knock on the front door of the people around you and you'll find equally devastating headlines. It's just that those headlines rarely make the nightly news or the Times.
The body count is stacking rapidly and we wonder where God is in the midst of it all, if he is here at all.
Oh, yes, it would be so very easy to believe he has vacated the premises. We would surely be justified in thinking so, as it seems every trace of the Almighty God has vanished.
And he hasn't just forgotten us. He's forsaken us. Deserted us. Abandoned us.
Left us, quite literally, for dead.
My God, my God, why have you forsaken us? Everywhere we look is death and destruction. Where are you in the midst of it? A darkness has come over all the land, and we are groping our way through the inky black, desperate to find any trace of you, your goodness, your light, your hope.
I know that feeling, when you're left on your knees, questioning everything you thought to be true, and perhaps wondering most of all if God really has finally just left you for dead. Those thoughts come easily in the dark.
But is this not the very crux of faith: what will our response be when it seems every trace of God has vanished?
Job faced this question. All his servants, dead. All his livestock, dead. All his children, dead. His own body? Not quite dead. But he was stricken with sores from head to toe nonetheless. "Then Job took a piece of broken pottery and scraped himself with it as he sat among the ashes" (Job 2:8).
Surely God had vanished.
David faced this question. A hunted man, spending more than a decade of his life on the run from a madman trying to slay him out of jealousy and insecurity. He moved from one cave to the next, under constant threat of attack, always sleeping with one eye open and a sword tucked close. "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, and am not silent" (Psalm 22:1-2).
Surely God had vanished.
Jesus faced this question. He spent his life under constant suspicion and scrutiny of the religious leaders. They delighted in scheming up ways to trap him with questions. And then when they finally had had enough of his blaspheming? They stripped, mocked, beat, whipped, punched, flogged, flayed, and crucified the man. Without apology or remorse, or so much as a second glance over their shoulders. "From the sixth hour until the ninth hour darkness came over all the land. About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" - which means, "My, God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:45-46).
Surely God had vanished.
And that's just if you're reading the major headlines of the Bible. Knock on the door of other characters and you'll find many more who were seemingly forsaken by God.
It appears he is an equal opportunity forsaker, from the common man to the Son of Man.
But if our faith is based on our circumstances, on what we see when we look around at a world gone haywire, at a world that ebbs and flows like the rising tide, then it is no faith at all. If we choose to believe that our every storyline ends in death and despair, then death and despair is all we'll see. If all you have is a hammer, then everything is a nail.
When we find ourselves groping our way through the inky blackness, pleading the lights would finally come back on, we must believe and we must confess:
He has not forsaken us.
Job believed this. He groped his way through the inky blackness of grief and sorrow, and said, "Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him" (Job 13:15).
David believed this. He groped his way through the inky blackness of terror and trauma, and said, "For he has not despised or disdained the suffering of the afflicted one; he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help" (Psalm 22:24).
Jesus believed this. He groped his way through the inky blackness of hell, and said, "'Abba, Father, everything is possible for you...Yet not what I will, but what you will'" (Mark 13:36).
God had not forsaken them, despite what their circumstances screamed.
C.S. Lewis said in his classic book, The Screwtape Letters, "Satan's cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do God's will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys."
When we look round upon a universe from which it seems every trace of him has vanished, will we still obey, even when we no longer desire to? Will we still seek to do God's will even in the face of the stacking body count all around us? Will we still seek to grab hold of him by faith and believe he has not forsaken us despite what the news headlines tell us? Will we still intend to do God's will when everything within our frame compels us to run the other way?
Every trace of God seemed to have vanished while his own Son hung on the cross. Complete and utter darkness had befallen the land. Hope had been blacked out. The sunlight snuffed like the flame of a candle, without even so much as a few lingering wisps of smoke.
From his vantage point on a cross high up on a hillside, Jesus looked round upon a universe from which every trace of his Father seemed to have vanished and asked why he had been forsaken.
And yet he stayed nailed to that cross.
He still went to the grave.
He still obeyed.
Will we do the same? Will our response be that of Job, "Though You slay me, yet will I hope in you"?
Dear God, let it be so.
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For further listening:
Though You Slay Me by Shane and Shane, featuring John Piper
Held by Natalie Grant
Give Me a Song by Will Regan and United Pursuit
Joy by Page CXVI
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