Description
Who Moved?
Job 23: 1-17
A notice that sometimes appears on church bulletin boards says, “If God seems far away, guess who moved?” There’s obviously some truth in the point it makes about our relationship with God, but the notice rather tempts me to deface it. I have known times when God seemed far away, and I didn’t think I had moved. I recall coming out of a chapel service at my seminary in England and feeling discouraged that I did not feel I had been meeting with God in the way that other people had looked as if they were. I said as much to a student who asked how I had found the service, and he said, “Maybe God wants you to be in that place at the moment.” It was a tough response, but maybe he was right, and in due course the feeling passed; I again knew God was present with me. I now talk with people from time to time who don’t have the sense of God’s presence that they once had, and who feel they are doing all they can to reach out to God but meet with no response...