Thought Exercise on God's Absence

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Suffering is Evidence of God’s Presence

Author

Keywords

Scripture

1 Peter 4:12-13, 2 Corinthians 12:9, Psalm 34:18, Luke 9:23, Philippians 3:10

Suffering is not evidence of God’s absence, but of God’s presence, and it is in our experience of being broken that God does his surest and most characteristic salvation work. There is a way to accept...

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God’s [Perceived] Absence

Author

C. S. Lewis

Keywords

Meanwhile, where is God? This is one of the most disquieting symptoms. When you are happy, so happy that you have no sense of needing Him, if you turn to Him then with praise, you will be welcomed wit...

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The Two Great Questions

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 50:19-20 , Job 19:25-27, Isaiah 25:7-8 , John 11:25-26, Romans 8:38-39 , Psalm 23:4

In a poignant tribute written after his son’s passing in a climbing accident, Nicholas Wolterstorff reflects: When we have overcome absence with phone calls, winglessness with airplanes, summer he...

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The Silence of God

Author

Shusaku Endo

Keywords

Scripture

Psalm 22:1, Psalm 42:3, Habakkuk 1:2, Isaiah 45:15, Job 30:20, Lamentations 3:28-30

In the deeply moving novel Silence by Shusaku Endo, the protagonist, a young Jesuit priest named Sebastião Rodrigues describes in horror what it is like to watch two of his disciples, Japanese nationa...

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See What Happens

Author

Charles F. Stanley

Keywords

Do you ever feel as if God is far from you? Be assured, He is steadfastly near. Do not be disheartened because you don’t see Him in your circumstances. I saw an illustration of this during a photograp...

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Is There Anybody Out There?

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 28:20, Hebrews 13:5, Psalm 139:7-10, Isaiah 41:10, Deuteronomy 31:6, Psalm 34:18

One of the universal experiences of life is questioning whether God really exists or if we are ultimately, alone in the universe. The great British theologian (this isn’t meant to be taken seriously) ...

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How Americans View God

Author

Baylor University Media Communications

Keywords

The Baylor Religion Survey "is the most extensive and sensitive study of religion ever conducted," aiming to go beyond just whether someone goes to church or believes in God, but probing at...

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Defining the Secular

Author

David Zahl

Keywords

Scripture

Ecclesiastes 1:2, 14 , Judges 21:25 , Genesis 11:4 , Romans 1:21-22, Psalm 14:1 , Acts 17:22-23

In this short (and humorous) excerpt, author David Zahl shares a definition of the secular: Perhaps secular warrants its own explanation, though. My most immediate association comes from the belov...

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Reaching Further than your Grasp

Author

Darren Pollock

Keywords

Scripture

Mark 7:24-37, 1 John 5:14-15

Once when my daughter was six and my son was two, my mother-in-law noticed my daughter holding a favorite toy just out of my son’s standing reach, and she gently scolded her for teasing him that way. ...

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Reflecting on Shusaku Endo’s Novel and Film, Silence

Author

Nikki Toyama-Szeto

Keywords

Scripture

1 Peter 2:12, Galatians 3:26-28, 1 Corinthians 12:12-13, John 13:34-35, Acts 2:42-47, Matthew 28:19-20, James 2:17-18

In Silence, Shusaku Endo writes of the journey of Portuguese Jesuits journeying to Japan. It is a conversation about those who intend to take the path of Jesus, only to find they are on the path of Ju...

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Jesus, Could you Hand me the Broom?

Author

Justin Sedgewick

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 28:20, Isaiah 41:13, Psalm 121:7-8, Psalm 4:8, Joshua 1:9, Deuteronomy 31:6

A little boy is afraid of the dark. One night his mother tells him to go out to the back porch and bring her the broom. The little boy turns to his mother and says, “Mama, I don’t want to go out there...

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The Happy Night

Author

Marlena Graves

Keywords

Wilderness

Eventually, God sends all who truly seek to know him into a spiritual wilderness. That’s why St. John of the Cross calls this dark night, this desert of ours, a “happy night.” The night is happy becau...

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The Ministry of Absence

Author

Ruth Haley Barton

Keywords

Control

Scripture

Isaiah 30:15, Psalm 46:10, 2 Corinthians 4:18, Romans 8:26, John 14:26, 1 John 16:7

The other thing that helps me deal with my compulsion to control things through my direct involvement and my fear of missing out is what Henri Nouwen has called “the ministry of absence.” Jesus modele...

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Peace Keeping vs. Peacemaking

Author

Rick Love

Keywords

Scripture

Jeremiah 6:14, Jeremiah 8:11, Ezekiel 13:10, John 5:42

Peacekeepers are conflict avoiders, sweeping important issues under the carpet so no conflict manifests itself. This often happens in families and churches. This also happens between alienated ethnic ...

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He Who Was All Stillness, All Peace, All Poise

Author

Richard J. Foster

Keywords

Anthony Bloom tells the story of an elderly woman who had been working at prayer with all her might but without ever sensing God’s presence. Wisely, the archbishop encouraged the old woman to go to he...

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The President Vouches for Us

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Scripture

John 16:33, Daniel 3:16–30, Exodus 14:13–14 , John 16:33, Romans 8:28, 31–34, Psalm 91:1–4

Max Lucado tells a true story showing that God's determination to shape His followers proves stronger than Satan's most persistent efforts to discourage them. What the enemy plans for destruc...

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The Love of God Wrapped About Him

Author

Thomas Kelly

Keywords

Scripture

Psalm 4:1-3, Psalm 30:5, Romans 8:28, 2 Corinthians 4:16-18, Psalm 34:18, Isaiah 43:2, Psalm 23:4, Job 1:, Job 2:, Job 42:, 2 Samuel 11:, 2 Samuel 12:, Genesis 37:12-36, 1 Kings 17:8-24, Daniel 6:, Psalm 34:18

The sense of Presence! I have spoken of it as stealing on one unawares. It is recorded of John Wilhelm Rowntree that as he left a great physician’s office, where he had just been told that his advanci...

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Where is God? Hanging From the Gallows

Author

Jonathan Cornell

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 27:46, Hebrews 4:15, 1 Peter 3:18, John 19:30, 1 Peter 4:13

In Elie Wiesel’s Night , Eliezer is a Jewish teenager, a devoted student of the Talmud from Sighet, in Hungarian Transylvania. In the spring of 1944, the Nazis occupied Hungary. Increasingly repressi...

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A Consuming Fire

Author

John Starke

Keywords

Scripture

Exodus 24:17, Deuteronomy 4:24, Hebrews 12:29, Isaiah 6:5

“Holy, holy, holy.” What are they saying? Have you ever wondered that? What does that mean? Many people have tried to understand what God’s holiness means. Some describe it as his perfect morality. Go...

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On the Side?

Author

Jonathan K. Dodson

Keywords

In his thoughtful book, Our Good Crisis: Overcoming Moral Chaos with the Beatitudes, Jonathan K. Dodson shares a funny, yet poingnant encounter with a man who wanted to keep religion private: I ...

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If God Wanted to Remain Silent…

Author

Michael Kendrick

Keywords

Scripture

Psalm 19:1-2, Romans 1:20, Isaiah 6:3, Job 12:7-9, Colossians 1:16, John 1:3

If God wanted to remain silent about His existence, He wouldn’t have bothered creating the stars; He wouldn’t have made the Milky Way, or Betelgeuse. In fact, He wouldn’t have made the majestic Rocky ...

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Feed My Sheep

Author

Dallas Willard

Keywords

Scripture

Isaiah 6:1-8, Exodus 33:12-23, 1 Samuel 3:1-10, Acts 9:1-19, Matthew 17:1-8, Psalm 16:11

Sometimes, of course, the sense of God with us becomes much more distinct. My oldest brother, J. I. Willard, served for over thirty years as a minister under the blessing of God. But his entry into th...

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Lacking Presence

Author

Alan Fadling

Keywords

In his excellent book, An Unhurried Life, Alan Fadling describes the challenge of experiencing God’s presence, even in the relatively slow world (in comparison to our own) of the fourteenth-century: ...

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The God of the Commonplace

Author

Peter Marshall

Keywords

If God does not enter your kitchen, there is something wrong with your kitchen. If you can’t take God into your recreation, there is something wrong with your play. We all believe in the God of the he...

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Was that God?

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Scripture

1 Samuel 3:1-10, Exodus 13:21-22 , Matthew 18:1-5, John 14:25-27 , Psalm 121:

A little girl was traveling with her family on a long sleeper train. As night fell, she was put in the upper bunk and was reassured that God would look after her. When everyone started to doze off, th...

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Life in the Gaps

Author

Wayne Stiles

Keywords

Most of life is lived in the gaps between great moments. The peaks seem to protrude only after miles and miles of death valleys. While the Bible reveals its characters in terms of their high points, w...

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Leaving Home

Author

E. Randolph Richards and Richard James

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 12:10-20, Exodus 3:15

“When Abram came to Egypt, the Egyptians saw that Sarai was a very beautiful woman” (Gen 12:14). What is considered beautiful is one of those things that often goes without being said. Sarah was about...

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How God Speaks

Author

Dan Gilliam

Keywords

Scripture

Psalm 46:10

While there is a common assumption in church circles that God speaks most frequently and the clearest through singing worship and heart-enlivened sermons, I find the context of speechless tranquility ...

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God is a Consuming Fire

Author

Fulton J. Sheen

Keywords

Curiously enough, it is a fear of how grace will change and improve them that keeps many souls away from God. They want God to take them as they are and let them stay that way. They want Him to take a...

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Home is Three Persons

Author

Jen Pollock Michel

Keywords

Scripture

John 14:23, Genesis 12:1, Psalm 139:7-10, Hebrews 13:14, 2 Corinthians 6:16

In her book Keeping Place: Reflections on the Meaning of Home, Jen Pollock Michel reflects on the nature of home in a transient age. In this short excerpt, Michel relates home to the Trinity, the ...

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