Between the mass shootings that have occurred in the past couple months, the multiple natural disasters that have destroyed people's lives, wrestling with the problem of evil and the effectiveness of prayer in one of my classes, and some personal situations that have been going on, lately I have been struggling with fully trusting God and understanding where He is in the midst of these sufferings. And while in my head I know my personal theology of God does not claim that God has caused these acts of evil or has chosen to overlook them, my heart still has so many questions. I am grateful that He has given us complete freedom because with freedom comes true, unadulterated love, but in the wake of a mass murder it's hard not to wonder if freedom is really worth so much suffering. So, after feeling a little distant from God lately, this morning I decided to just go searching for ways that I could begin to trust Him again and so I turned to the Bible. The first passage I decided to turn to was Psalm 13. Here the writer, like me, is questioning God (the Psalms lately have become the songs of my heart mostly for that reason. They're full of real, human emotion and authentic, they don't hide anything from God). At the end of Psalm 13 though, after questioning where God is, the writer talks about God's unfailing love and goodness which, most beautifully displayed though Jesus Christ, is what keeps drawing me back to Him again and again. Because despite what's going on around me, the one thing that remains is God's reckless love for all of us and I find comfort in knowing that we worship a God who has personally experienced suffering so that we aren't alone in our suffering; He is there with us. And so, going back to my struggle of questioning whether prayer does anything, all I can say is this: maybe God does respond through prayer and yet maybe there are just some things we pray for that God can't do. I don't really know if praying to God to intervene and stop evil here on earth works but what I do know is that God is with us and never leaves us and through prayer we can tap into some of His goodness so that we can be the light in the darkness all around us.
This possibly could just have been a lot of ramblings however this morning was a much needed time with God and so I thought I would share some of my reflections from it.
"God has not promised sun without rain, joy without sorrow, peace without pain. But God has promised strength for the day, rest for the labor, light for the way, grace for the trials, help from above, unfailing sympathy, undying love." -Annie Johnson Flint
More verses on trusting God that I turned to this morning that were helpful in reconnecting me to Him and his unfailing love: Psalm 13, Psalm 112, John 12:44-46, Romans 15:13, Ephesians 3:14-19
