My friend saw her life shattered into pieces and scattered to the wind. Where oh where was God’s voice amid the pain that never let up? Had God left the house?
WHEN ALL HOPE HAS FLED
There is a quote from Chad Prather fits the bill entirely for that moment we feel deserted, alone, and all hope has fled. The crucial time when we need to hear God speak those precious words, “I’m not leaving.”
MICROWAVE GROANS
He’s your Father. And sometimes the most powerful prayer is a groan so deep only the Spirit can interpret it. He hears the messy stuff. The rage. The silence. The disappointment. He understands “microwave moans”.
HE SITS IN IT WITH YOU
He’s not offended by the broken grammar of a crushed heart. God is not looking for polished people. He’s drawn to shattered ones. You don’t need to clean up your grief to bring it to Him. He sits in it with you. He wraps Himself around your pain and whispers, “I’m not leaving”. (From “Born for Meaning” by Chad Prather)
GOD IS FOR US
The Apostle Paul shared similar thoughts. “What then shall we say to all these things? If God is for us, who can be [successful] against us? He who did not spare [even] His own Son, but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against God’s elect (His chosen ones)? It is God who justifies us [declaring us blameless and putting us in a right relationship with Himself]. Who is the one who condemns us? Christ Jesus is the One who died [to pay our penalty], and more than that, who was raised [from the dead], and who is at the right hand of God interceding [with the Father] for us.
Who shall ever separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors and gain an overwhelming victory through Him who loved us [so much that He died for us].
For I am convinced [and continue to be convinced—beyond any doubt] that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present and threatening, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the [unlimited] love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:31-39)
God’s not leaving….