Near...

             “Am I only a God nearby,” declares the Lord, “and not a God far away?”

“Who can hide in secret places so that I cannot see them?” declares the Lord.

“Do not I fill heaven and earth?” declares the Lord. (Jeremiah 23:23-24)

 

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me,
    so far from my cries of anguish? My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer,
    by night, but I find no rest. (Psalm 22:1-2)

 

 Where is God? I’m not asking where God was when something bad happened. I’m asking where God is now - in your life, in mine, in the lives of our leaders, etc. Where is God? I’m not asking for the good Sunday School answer, which is “God is everywhere. He’s omnipresent.”

In Scripture, there are two basic answers that God declares to be wrong. The first is that He’s not here. He doesn’t see what is happening. He doesn’t know what we’ve done (and we’re not going to tell Him!) The second is that “He’s not there.” He can’t do anything about those people over there. Today’s passage deals more with the latter. The Jews in Jeremiah’s day were enslaved to the north instead of in Egypt, and the Jews seemed to have believed that God could not, or would not, do anything about it. Perhaps they had succumbed to the popular belief that gods were basically local entities. Your god could help you within this geographic area, but there were other gods if you stepped over that line. Some were more powerful than others, but if your people were taken away to another land, it’s possible that the other god might prove more powerful than yours. Of course, they wouldn’t say that aloud.

We’re probably in the same boat. We know what we are supposed to say, but that’s not always the way we feel or what we really think. Even David asks God where He is in the psalm right before he sings of God as a shepherd who provides all that he needs. In the Sixteenth Century, St. John of the Cross wrote of “the dark night of the soul” in which God seems to be hiding.

I’m not facing a dark night, but at the same time, God doesn’t show up when, where, how, or why I want Him to. If He did, I would be His god. That means that God frequently feels far away. There are times when He feels near, when I hear His voice or discover a present.

I’m reminded of an old “Native American” story about boys being blindfolded and left in the forest overnight, sitting on a tree to prove their bravery and manhood. In the morning, they remove their blindfolds to discover that their father had been sitting with them all night, keeping them safe. I think sometimes, that’s how we are - blind and sitting in a forest, thinking we’re alone when we’re not.

At the same time, I think the question of God’s location is an important one to ask, especially if we use it as a way to explore our own thinking. Why do we think God is far away? What does that reason say about our thinking? Why do we think He’s near? What does that say about our thinking? Is this an area where we need to change?