An Ambling God

Sunday 4/12/2015 5:54 AM

My devotional theme for the new week is: count it all joy. I thought immediately of Emily’s friends having to deal with the devastating diagnosis of brain cancer and how difficult it would be to count that as joy. My psalm for the new week is Psalm 47, which begins with these words, “Clap your hands, all you nations; shout to God with cries of joy. For the Lord Most High is awesome, the great King over all the earth.” I’m not sure why, but for some reason when I first looked at those verses I read the second verse as, “For the Lord Most High is kindness, the great King over all the earth.”

It is easy to think of God as being kind when life is going well and everything is rosy but when news like brain cancer enters the picture, the kindness of God disappears from our consciousness. The two things seem incompatible to us, mutually exclusive sets. We ask, “How could a loving, all-powerful God allow such a horrible thing to happen?” I don’t have an answer to that question.

When my dad died when I was thirteen I asked the same question. I didn’t have an answer then either but I know that in the middle of my grief God was right there with me, crying along with me. I don’t know why he doesn’t just keep the painful things from happening but I do know that he did not sit by, aloofly watching me suffer. He entered into the suffering with me and shared it. Things change in life, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse. The good news is that God walks with me in all the change and eventually leads me to a better place.