Reading 14: Where is God in this?

A friend of mine had lost his wife, not to cancer, but to a reaction to the chemotherapy that was supposed to save her life. They were in their early 50s. Years after her death, he still struggled to understand. He said about his prayer life, “I tell God, ‘I don’t need to see the whole picture, but could you show me just a corner?'”

If you have ever tried to make sense of something that makes no sense, you know where Paul is in Romans 9-11. He has spent eight chapters outlining our need for mercy and God’s grace in response to that need. He ends chapter eight with the great news that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

But so many of his Jewish brothers and sisters look to be separated from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. They cannot see that the God they know and worship, the God of Abraham, is the One who raised Jesus from the dead and who justifies both Jew and Gentile through him. The very people Paul would expect to be first in line to embrace Jesus as Messiah and Lord are not making the connection. How can this be?

Paul will spend three chapters of Romans working on this problem. He will ask questions like those we ask when we are trying to understand something up that leaves a gaping hole at our center: Why? What are you doing, God? Have you abandoned your people? Is there a blessing—any blessing at all—in something that causes such anguish? I don’t need the whole picture, God, but could you show me a corner?

For Paul, the apparent rejection of Jesus by many of his “kindred according to the flesh” (Romans 9:3) brings into focus the question of whether God can be trusted to keep God’s promises. The source of anguish may be different for Paul than it is for us, but in times of heartbreak, his question is also ours, “Where is God in this?”

Have you ever puzzled over how God is working in some event or circumstance? Did you come to any conclusions?

Paul cites many scripture passages as he works out how God is faithful even when it doesn’t look like it. Are there verses or stories in Scripture that you return to when times are tough?

O God, we thank you for your grace, shown to all in Christ. When your presence and your will are hidden from us, sustain us. Help us to put our faith in you, for you are trustworthy. Amen.

–The Rev. Mary Hinkle Shore is the pastor of the Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd in Brevard. She was in ministry for more than twenty years in North Dakota and Minnesota, coming to the NC Synod four years ago. She serves on the synod’s Book of Faith task group.