God is always here

The other night at fellowship, one of the discussion questions following the movie was if we ever had moments when we asked, "Where is God?" Today I had a moment, where I was at my lowest of lows. It came over me like a raging wave, and I felt myself sinking lower and lower. I found myself asking the same question that we had discussed days earlier. Where was God? Come and cheer me up, lift me out of this cloud of blue! Then, I saw a small flicker of flame burning on my old prayer candle. I was totally surprised by this. I used to use this candle every night when I prayed. But, the wick had burnt down to bits that it had become very hard to light. So, for a while the prayer candle was overlooked and replaced by my night light. But last night, I used a new lighter to reach down to the itty bitty wick at the bottom of the big candle. When I didn't see a steady and glowing frame, I thought, "the candle has come to the end of her life".

Seeing the tiny flick of flame still burning this morning reminded me of the devotion I did a few days earlier about how God is always with us, but sometimes we look for him in the wrong places and hence, deem him to be missing from our lives. I took the candle to the bathroom and poured out the melted wax that had collected around the wick. And before I knew it, the flame had grown into a bright and energetic dance. I will never forget my amazement as I watched this unfold. I had always liked to think of the lit flame as a symbol of God's presence, that I am encountering Christ in real-time and real-life during my prayers. Where there is light, there is hope, because God created light. Watching the flame grow, I thought that this might be God speaking to me, telling me that he's always with me, and despite of my lowly times, he's never left my side.

Although I gained some confidence in God's sovereignty, my mood wasn't lifted much by what happened. It would be fantastic, being a Christian (at least for me), the knowledge and the declaration that God is always with me would release me of all my pains and sorrows. But it doesn't. Because we are human, and sinful, we must pay for the choices we make. We will suffer, we will cry out. Children will pay for the sins of parents. We are a broken people, like shattered glass. And we desperately need the Grace of God, to forgive us for our sins, to grant us the courage and love to forgive those who have hurt us, to heal, to re-build, to make us whole.