WHAT DO YOU DO

WHEN GOD IS ASLEEP?

By David Woodbury

As we cannot share Christian fellowship in our usual church community, perhaps this video along the lines of my post will bring some comfort. Please click the link below:

https://youtu.be/WssOBl3xbfk

Humanity is now facing a pandemic that threatens to take thousands, if not millions of lives. Within the matter of a few weeks, our entire world is facing a threat the like of which few, if of any us, could have ever imagined. Thousands of business closed, many millions now facing unemployment and the world economy in total chaos. The reality is that the world, and our nation as we currently know them, will never be the same again and we may well ask: “Where is God in all this?”

We feel that in times of great suffering and trauma on an extensive scale God should somehow intervene, however, history tells us that He rarely does. There are two things to consider here, the first is the operation of nature and the second is human free will, attributes that God himself has put in place.

During WW2 Nazi Germany under Adolph Hitler tortured and annihilated over six million men, women, children and infants of Jewish descent. If ever we felt that God should intervene it ought to have been in this situation, the extermination of His own chosen people, the Jewish race. But He didn’t.

What we need to understand is that we can never see the whole picture from God’s perspective. What was one of the outcomes of the Holocaust? One outcome was that the world was so appalled by it that they demanded action from the newly formed United Nations. On 29 November 1947, the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 181. The resolution recommended the creation of independent Arab and Jewish States and consequently, the new state of Israel came into being. In so doing the United Nations fulfilled the will of God found in Deuteronomy 30:1-5, for the Jewish people to return to the land God had promised.

“In the future, when you experience all these blessings and curses I have listed for you, and when you are living among the nations to which the Lord your God has exiled you, take to heart all these instructions. If at that time you and your children return to the Lord your God, and if you obey with all your heart and all your soul all the commands I have given you today, then the Lord your God will restore your fortunes. He will have mercy on you and gather you back from all the nations where he has scattered you. Even though you are banished to the ends of the earth, the Lord your God will gather you from there and bring you back again. The Lord your God will return you to the land that belonged to your ancestors, and you will possess that land again. Then he will make you even more prosperous and numerous than your ancestors!”

It seems somewhat callous that God would allow the slaughter of His own people on such a scale and not intervene. What needs to be understood is the Holocaust occurred because certain evil individuals exercised their God-given free will. Out of man’s inhumanity to man, God’s prophecy is fulfilled. But still, the question remains: “Where was God in all this?” I find some comfort in the story recorded in Mark 4:36-41.”

As evening came, Jesus said to his disciples, “Let’s cross to the other side of the lake.” So they took Jesus in the boat and started out, leaving the crowds behind (although other boats followed). But soon a fierce storm came up. High waves were breaking into the boat, and it began to fill with water. Jesus was sleeping at the back of the boat with his head on a cushion. The disciples woke him up, shouting, “Teacher, don’t you care that we’re going to drown?”

When Jesus woke up, he rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Silence! Be still!” Suddenly the wind stopped, and there was a great calm. Then he asked them, “Why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith?” The disciples were absolutely terrified. “Who is this man?” they asked each other. “Even the wind and waves obey him!”

Picture the scene - The disciples are in crisis - their whole world is about to come crashing in on them - they are angry and offended because Jesus was asleep in the bottom of the boat. Honestly, haven't you ever felt that way about God? It may well be that many good Christians ponder the question today. Our whole world is crashing down around us and apparently, God is nowhere to be seen - He's asleep in the bottom of the boat.

Just as the storm swept down upon those disciples in the fishing boat so crisis and trauma will sweep down on all of us, just as unexpectedly and just as catastrophically. What we need to bear in mind here is that these disciples were experienced fishermen. No doubt they had fished these waters many times and had experienced many storms. Previous occurrences would have taught them that storms come. All too often, when we are confronted by crisis, we find that, although we suspected that one day it might happen, we are unprepared for it.

Now observe, the reaction of these experienced fishermen was fear - often the effect of a crisis in our lives brings out raw, chilling and unbridled fear, the like of which we have never experienced before. Instead of using their experience and seamanship to control the boat, the disciples are activated by raw, icy fear. They were in danger of sinking because they were frozen by fear. Fear always distorts the reality of the situation.

Fear often has to do with the unknown - of feeling that we have a situation that we can no longer control or predict. That's the thing that really scares us; we feel we have lost control over what is happening. The reality is that what is happening is probably controlling us. We need to understand fear for what it is and not allow it to dominate our situation. Very often, it is in facing our fears that we grow and mature.

By his very nature, man is a fearful being. Given a threatening situation, the natural reaction of a human being is fear. Very often it is that God-given characteristic that keeps us alive. But we're not talking about that sort of natural fear, we're talking about the sort of fear that gets out of control and dominates our lives. 

One of the great mistakes we make is that in the moment of suffering and crisis, we want to determine how it will be resolved. What we need to realise is that God who wrote the opening chapters of our lives will also write the closing chapter, for only He, as the author of our lives knows what the last chapter holds.

Jesus was still in the boat, although it appeared to the disciples, that he was absent because he was asleep, The reality is that in the crisis He had never left them, no matter what appearances may have indicated. The final promise of Jesus to those who choose to be His disciples was that He would never leave them.

Jesus came and told his disciples, “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age. (Matthew 28:18-20 – NLT)

Our prayer, in the time of crisis, ought not to be that the crisis will be resolved in our way, but rather, like Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, "Not my will, but yours be done." We must, in the final analysis, come to the acceptance of God's authorship in the story of our lives. The unhappiest people I have ever met are those who fight against that which cannot be changed.

I ponder on the scene of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. Was this experience perhaps one of those situations where quiet acceptance was the only answer to the crisis that was upon Him? Here is a question for us to consider; "Is simple resignation and obedience to the will of God just another form of cowardice, or is it the supreme act of courage?"

Gordon McDonald, in his book, "Rebuilding Your Broken World," says that “restorative grace is the act of God, which draws back into His loving arms the broken and traumatized soul.” It doesn't imply that all will be set right, that all problems and outcomes will be resolved in our way. It simply takes the traumatized and broken soul into a whole relationship with a loving God, who has not really been asleep.

Where is God when we are suffering? Let me say to those who suffered the agony of the Holocaust years ago, God was not asleep, He was right there sharing in their suffering, humiliation and shame. His anger is kindled against the perpetrators.

It may well seem that there are times in life when God is asleep in the bottom of the boat, times when our world threatens to come crashing down around us. But the lesson of Scripture is that God is always present, and for those who will truly trust Him and reach out to Him, He will come, just as He did to those disciples on the lake, with words of peace and comfort.

Jesus said: I am leaving you with a gift—peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give. So don’t be troubled or afraid. (John 14:27 - (NLT)