Is He Really There?

I had cause to minister last weekend to a young mother who has been battling cancer for over a year. Much prayer has gone up for her, and she has seen dramatic improvement, but things had taken a dramatic downturn, and she was facing surgery for the worst of the new tumours that had appeared.

The temptation was to feel that somehow God had lost interest in her. Or, perhaps, he wasn't really there at all. I was led to read to her a passage from the prophet Isaiah which begins: "Why do you say, O Jacob, and complain, O Israel, 'My way is hidden from the LORD; my cause is disregarded by my God?" (Isaiah 40:27)

Isaiah was writing for a people who were deeply discouraged. Their homeland had been conquered by a foreign power and they had been carted off as captives. Even though they believed God had given them their land in the first place, he seemed to have deserted them in their hour of need. Now they had been left to languish for over half a century in a strange land with a foreign culture and a foreign religion. They had good reason for feeling, amongst the obviously successful gods of their conquerors, that their God wasn't there for them any more.

Isaiah correctly identified the feelings of many godly people when things go wrong around them and their life seems to crash in a heap. It is easy to feel that God has left us; that he is not really concerned about us; or that he is not really there after all. It is easy to fall into an attitude of doubt about the reality of God's presence, and his goodness towards us. However, Isaiah goes on with a message that has brought encouragement and hope to thousands of God's people over the centuries.

"Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak."

My friend was doubly encouraged by these words. Not only is there powerful encouragement in the words themselves, but this was the very passage that she had looked at in her own reading. It was as though God had confirmed his word by bringing the same passage from a totally different direction. The passage goes on to say: "Even youths grow tired and weary and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint." (Isaiah 40:28-31)

It is a matter of history that the message of encouragement which God gave to his people through the prophet Isaiah did eventually come to fruition. The fierce Babylonians who had conquered them were eventually themselves defeated just as God had said. The new government Cyrus, King of Persia released them from captivity and allowed them to return to their homeland.

But this word of Isaiah is more than just a word for a particular people at a particular time. It reveals something to us about the nature of God that is as relevant to us today as it was to the Israelites six hundred years before Christ. God in his wisdom and love sometimes allows us to go through times where he seems to be missing. He does not always answer our prayers at a time or in a way that we expect. But he never gives up on us. He never abandons us. He will give strength to the weary and increase the power of the weak. And, when he is ready, he will bring his purposes to fulfillment.

As a matter of history, my friend has come through the operation more successfully than the doctor expected. There were many "miraculous coincidences" surrounding the whole process that leave us in no doubt that God was really there through the whole procedure. She still has a long way to go, and many mighty mountains to overcome. Medically her future is almost hopeless, but we have no doubt that God is really there, and the outcome is in his capable and loving hands.

John Davies

3 August 2003