
Absent God
Where is God?
It’s ok to ask this question.
Psalm 42
As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God.
Psalm 42:1
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?
Psalm 42:2
My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me all day long, “Where is your God?”
Psalm 42:3
These things I remember as I pour out my soul: how I used to go to the house of God under the protection of the Mighty One with shouts of joy and praise among the festive throng.
Psalm 42:4
Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.
Psalm 42:5
My soul is downcast within me; therefore, I will remember you from the land of the Jordan, the heights of Hermon—from Mount Mizar. Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me.
Psalm 42:6-7
Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.
Psalm 42:11
The Pattern of Psalm 42
- I need God, but God has forgotten me.
- I am in a painful situation right now.
- My enemies mock me. Where is your God?
- Conversation with his soul – why so downcast? Put your hope in God.
- The resolution = “I will yet praise him.”
How does he go from downcast soul and eating his tears to hope and praise?
He gave himself a Pep Talk
The Presence of God, The Nature of God, and the Empathy of Jesus
The Presence of God – 3 Different Types
- Omnipresent
- Manifest presence (theophany = burning bush, Christophany = Paul’s conversion)
- The Holy Spirit indwells believers.
The Nature of God – His attributes
- God Is Infinite – He is Self-Existing, Without Origin
- God Is Immutable – He Never Changes
- God Is Self-Sufficient – He Has No Needs
- God is Omnipotent – He Is All Powerful
- God Is Omniscient – He Is All-Knowing
- God Is Omnipresent – He Is Always Everywhere
- The Nature of God – His attributes
- God Is Wise – He Is Full of Perfect, Unchanging Wisdom
- God Is Faithful – He Is Infinitely, Unchangingly True
- God Is Good – He Is Infinitely, Unchangingly Kind and Full of Good Will
- The Nature of God – His attributes
- God Is Just – He Is Infinitely, Unchangeably Right and Perfect in All He Does
- God Is Merciful – He is Infinitely, Unchangeably Compassionate and Kind
- God Is Gracious – God Is Infinitely Inclined to Spare the Guilty
- The Nature of God – His attributes
- God Is Loving – God Infinitely, Unchangingly Loves Us
- God Is Holy – He is Infinitely, Unchangingly Perfect
- God Is Glorious – He is Infinitely Beautiful and Great
Jesus Understands
“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.”
Hebrews 4:15
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
Matthew 27:46
“For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Romans 8:38-39
Even when we don’t feel God,
Even when we are hurting in our pain,
We can have faith and trust that God is still God and we can praise Him in that.
Sometimes we need a pep talk.
Given the presence and the nature of God with the empathy of Jesus
Perhaps it’s less of the question “where is God”
and more the question “where are you in relation to God?”
“The idea of cultivation and exercise, so dear to the saints of old, has now no place in our total religious picture. It is too slow, too common. We now demand glamour and fast flowing dramatic action. A generation of Christians reared among push buttons and automatic machines is mpatient of slower and less direct methods of reaching their goals. We have been trying to apply machine-age methods to our relations with God. We read our chapter, have our short devotions and rush away, hoping to make up for our deep inward bankruptcy by attending another gospel meeting or listening to another thrilling story told by a religious adventurer lately returned from afar.”
-A.W. Tozer
Deep Calls to Deep
We have a deep longing inside of us to know the deep and fullness of God.
Where is God?
Start there.
Seek God.