Isaiah 35:4 “…he will come to save you.”
With pointed alliteration, Max Lucado, in his wonderful book, Great Day Every Day, poses the three questions we ask about God when trouble overwhelms us:
Do you think he can?
Do you think he cares?
Do you think he will come?
If we believe the Bible at all, we can’t help but acknowledge that he is the all-powerful, almighty Creator of the whole universe. He fashioned everything—from the DNA polymers that determine the makeup of every living being to the stars in the Milky Way. Nothing is impossible with God (Luke 1:37). Of course he can.
But does this supreme omnipotent God really care about the struggles we face? “What is man that you are mindful of him?” inquires the psalmist (Psalm 8:4). Is the God “who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all” concerned over our concerns? (Romans 8:32). Is it perhaps no accident that the most quoted passage of scripture through the ages has been John 3:16—“for God so loved the world?” Of course he cares.
For me, the most poignant question of the three is the last. Doubts start to cloud my mind when my timing clashes with God’s. Somehow I think the God who has promised to never leave me or forsake me (Deuteronomy 31:8) has somehow gone AWOL. Will he lead me through this crisis? Will he carry me through the lonely moments? Will he lift the uncertainty, the myopic focus on the present, the fear I have that I might be letting him down?
I think I can’t stand the situation another minute and I cry out in desperation, where are you? Sometimes that “minute” turns into days, months, even years. And you know what? I find I can “stand” more than I thought I could. Not because I’m necessarily strong or faith-filled. But because he assures me he is right where he’s always been….
Will he come? Nope. He doesn’t have to. He is already here.