Imagine this…

You’re in a place where life seems pretty easy, things are going smoothly for the most part, everything seems to flow, things are good, things are stable, there’s nothing really holding you back or keeping you from doing whatever you want to do. Maybe you’re even “on top of the world”. Not too many obstacles really. Not too much of a struggle at all.

But then, suddenly things start to change.

Obstacles arise, life suddenly becomes extremely hard, things seem to crumble right before you, maybe even some confusion, issues from within start surfacing….

Then we look at God and say,

“What happened, God? Wait, where are You? Where did You go?”

Have you ever been there?

Honestly, being completely transparent with you–we’ve been going through a lot of this over the last year or so.

“What’s happening God? Where are You? Help!”

Sometimes in the darkness of these kinds of life circumstances, we can’t see Him there.

Oh He’s there, we just aren’t able to see Him there sometimes. He never leaves us.

But I was reading in Psalm 30, verse 6-7 this morning about how God sometimes, “hides His face” and we can become troubled…

“Now, in my prosperity I said,

‘I shall never be moved.’

Lord, by Your favor You have made my mountain stand strong;

You hid Your face, and I was troubled.”

Then David cried out to God, he talked with God, he shared his heart with God…

“I cried out to You, O Lord;

And to the Lord I made supplication:

‘What profit is there in my blood,

when I go down to the pit?

Will the dust praise You?

Will it declare Your truth?

Hear, O Lord, and have mercy on me; Lord be my Helper!” – Psalm 30:8-10

I don’t know about you, but to me that seems like a rather bold thing to say to God, “What good is it for me to be in this place? What good will it do if I’m not able to share the testimony of Your goodness, God?” –but then I see that David was sharing honestly where his heart was in that moment, and he had the kind of relationship with God where he poured out his heart –he knew he could be honest. This is where he honestly was and exactly what was on his heart, so he shared it with the Lord, even though he knew God already knew his heart.

What was he doing? He was drawing near to God, he was seeking God. He was searching. He was examining his life. He was digging deep.

Have you ever been a kid that’s wandered off and gotten lost in the supermarket? Suddenly you realize your parents aren’t there. Do you remember that intense kind of desperation to find your parents?

But then look at what happens, David goes into his testimony of deliverance and a change of heart…

“You have turned for me my mourning into dancing;

You have put off my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness,

To the end that my glory may sing praise to You and not be silent.

O Lord my God, I will give thanks to You forever.” – Psalm 30:11-12

There’s his testimony! I don’t know what happened as far as circumstances go, but here we can see that David was renewed and restored. He was delivered, something happened within him, and he was celebrating by sharing the testimony of God’s goodness.

It’s kind of like, we’re walking along the path, things are going great, maybe even easy, things are flowing, we’re looking around, but then we look at where we’re at, we look around, and it’s like “…. wait…. God…. where are You? Where did you go? I can’t find You. You were just there, things were great. What happened? Help!”

And then sometimes, the suffering comes… but in ALL OF THAT as we draw near to our Father, as we seek His face…we find our “refocus“.

We find Him, we “refocus” on Him, and we’ll see Him again.

And when we find Him and see Him, we’ll see that He was there all along.

Always with us, always for us, but He just “hid His face” for a little while because He knew, as our Father, that we needed to figure some things out about our lives. He knew that we needed a “refocus” that will get our eyes and our attention back on Him.

The kind of “refocus” that will help us to see just how much we desperately depend on Him with every step we take.

Isn’t that wonderful of God to do that for us? Isn’t that so Fatherly-like? Firm, maybe even hard, but loving and gentle because He’s still just right there with us all along.

He hasn’t lost us. He knows where we’re at.

We never “like”  having to go through these kinds of things, and hardships and trials certainly don’t always happen for this reason, let me be clear that I’m not saying I believe that.

But sometimes if we’re honest with ourselves, we do get ourselves into some stuff when we lose our focus on following our Father’s footsteps. It happens sometimes.

You know what? It’s alright. He’s going to get us back on track –stronger and wiser than ever before. He’s got our backs.

Take heart. Rest. Draw close to Him in the Secret Place.

He hasn’t lost us. He’s just right there.

Thank you, Father.

–Heather ?