Where is your God?

Psalm 42:3 ESV
My tears have been my food day and night, while they say to me all the day long, "Where is your God?"

This is not jut a questions we are asked but if we are honest, we ask it ourselves - and often.

The question was put to David when he was sore oppressed and cast down (see verse 11).  It was meant cruely and tauntingly - an attempt to make his travail even worse than it was.

And how do we answer this?  When the unbeliever looks at our distress and concern and snidely asks the question how are we to respond?

Tha mistake we often make in answering this question (even for ourselves) is that we want an answer that will satisfy the flesh - will satisfy the taunters.  We have to accept that there is no answer that will be acceptable to them, no answer even for our own flesh either.

The truth is that God is with us regardless of our condition and circumstances.  The truth is that God, in His gracious and merciful providence is always working for our good.  But apart from His assuraance of this we rarely have "proofs."  We have no demonstration apart from the sustinance of the Spirit and the faith He gives us with which to respond.

Psalm 22:7-8 ESV
All who see me mock me; they make mouths at me; they wag their heads; [8] "He trusts in the LORD; let him deliver him; let him rescue him, for he delights in him!"

Mockingly the world, the flesh and the devil wil seek to drive us to question the promises of God and the goodness of God.  They will seek to get us into an arguement we can not win on their terms.  But that is what they want.  They want me, a believer, to prove to them, a God-hating unbeliever, that God is real and good.  What a waste of time that is!

Even when the mocker is my own flesh - there is no arguement I can gve that will satisfy.  Oh, I can roam all over scripture pointing out the great examples of God's goodness and care for those who are His but the flesh - the world - the devil will never agree to these evidences - never admit I have won.

"Where is your God?"  Is a cruel hoax of a question seeking to draw us into their realm on their terms.  All we can say will never be enough.  And that being so we tend to get frustrated and anxious ans doubt seems to grow in our hearts.  We feel the weight of that fear of man that so pervades our hearts and minds.  We feel small and insignificant and useless.

The only response we can make to these cruel and useless taunts is that which David makes, prayer.  Prayer for those who taunt and prayer for our own strength and faithfulness.  The world, the flesh and the devil simpy want to engage us in a useless arguement to distract us from the duties and graces of the faith.  They don;t want an answer and there is no answer they will accept.

Brothers and sisters let us not allow "them" to distract us with their taunts and silly questions.  Let us give a kind answer but a true one.  That our God is always with us and has promised to be so forever.  Let us also be wise and serpents and innocent as doves as we engage the enemy - with a kind word and love.  You can't pursuade a blind man that blue is blue or a dead man that the sun is up.