Where Is God?

"Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD ... From heaven the LORD looks down and sees all mankind ... [and] considers everything they do. No king is saved by the size of his army; no warrior escapes by his great strength...But the eyes of the LORD are on those who fear him, on those whose hope is in his unfailing love, to deliver them from death and keep them alive in famine." - Psalm 33:12-19 (NIV). 




I recall having read in a college newspaper about a student who painted in big white letters right across the side of a garbage truck, "Where is God?" Perhaps he was thinking at some level, why does God allow garbage to happen?


It's an age-old question, as old as Job and as fresh as today: "Where is God when tragedy strikes ... when a loved one dies and the heart is torn with grief ... when innocent children are kidnapped, sexually abused, and murdered? And where was he on September 11, 2001? And again, when terrorist bombs blasted in many areas? Or when a sniper in the Washington, D.C. area was shooting and killing innocent people at random?"


I don't want to sound callous by any means but we are asking the wrong question because God is where he always was and always is. The Apostle Paul said it best, in that God "is not far from each one of us. 'For in him we live and move and have our being.'" See Acts 17:24, 26-28.


So the question needs to be, "Where is man?"


Our problem lies in the fact that we as nations have left God—or are fast leaving him. As God's Word, the Bible, says, "Blessed is that nation whose God is the Lord." - Psalm 33:12. And what of those nations whose God is not the Lord? Perhaps history can best answer that question.


But the great tragedy is, as Friedrich Hegel said, "The only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history."