MORNING MANNA          4/7/20

“Behold, I go forward, but he is not there; and backward, but I cannot perceive him: On the left hand, where he doth work, but I cannot behold him: he hideth himself on the right hand, that I cannot see him: But he knoweth the way that I take: when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold.” – Job. 23:8-10

Sunday morning I preached about “The Promise of God’s Presence”. That same morning I sent an Morning Manna article entitled “God is thinking of you”. But yesterday’s article seemed to say just the opposite. It was called “When God is Silent”. Today I want you to think about Job’s experience which left him wondering “Where is God?” Overnight Job’s world was turned upside down. Words can’t describe the greatness of his loss. Then, adding misery to woe, out of the depths of his suffering he tells us his search for God seemed futile. He couldn’t find God!

There is a great lesson in this for us. It reminds us the our feelings are sometimes contrary to the facts. For example, the Bible assures us that we are always in God’s thoughts and presence, and that he will never leave us. However, sometimes we feel that God has forgotten and forsaken us. That’s what happened to Job. I suspect the same, to an extent, has happened to some of you. In fact you might be in the throes of some great difficulty right now. You feel forgotten, forsaken, and frightened. Although you aren’t comfortable sharing your feelings with others, that is what you are experiencing. It could be something that is fleeting, or it could linger for days. And it is sheer torture as it troubles you day and night.

You know what the facts are as stated in the Bible, but you feel just the opposite. You aren’t so bold or foolish as to accuse God of being unfair or untruthful, but you can’t shake the feeling that things won’t turn out as He promised. Although your problems are not nearly so severe as those of Job you feel as he did. To get rid of those feelings we must admit to ourselves and to God that He is right and we are wrong. The only remedy is to remember what God said and rely upon it. In other words we must come to our senses. To accuse God of not doing what He promised is serious.

Deliverance from this dilemma comes only by realizing that what we know from the word of God enables us to deal with what we don’t know about the will of God. In other words, not only must we consider God’s promise to never forget or forsake us, we must look at the whole of God’s word and what it says about His glorious attributes. In doing so we come to realize that our feelings are false and God’s word is factual. That changes the way we feel. The circumstances might not change but we do.