Somewhere along the way we may turn around and wonder “where did Jesus go?”  We accepted Jesus as our Saviour and His peace and joy filled us.  Our eyes were unveiled, we had ears to hear and were given the Spirit of liberty.  The Lord’s face shined upon us.  The enemy throws out a couple of snares and we hardly notice; we are too focused on Jesus.  The enemies darts are deflected by our shield of faith.  We have a personal relationship with Jesus; we are a part of His joy..

Time ticks away and we are still holding strong to our faith.  We love our Lord Jesus.  He has brought us too far to turn our backs on Him now.  Nothing can shake our faith.  We have been tested, persecuted and plundered.  However, the trials, or sometimes just life in general  has started keeping us busy and we begin to miss Jesus.  We miss our chats in the quiet time, our reading in His Word…they are what kept us during our weakest moments but we got over that mountain, praise the Lord.  There is that longing in our spirit  but it eventually becomes calloused over by that important meeting.

Then we get a little rattled one day.  We are convinced our child has completely lost their mind but we get the problem handled and move on.  The rattles gradually become shakings; violent shakings.  Eventually we  turn around, throw our hands in the air and shout to the top of our lungs “God, where are you?”  We are God’s child and we feel as if He has left us.  Where are you God?

He’s still where we left Him.  The dusty Bible we will read later, the quiet time in the morning that has now become a social hub for the kids; He’s still there. We were tossed to and fro, pulled in every direction, robbed Peter to pay Tom; we handled it and He was still there.  We got too busy to wait on Him; too busy to consult with Him.  We were distracted.  Distraction is dangerous to a Christian. We lose focus and begin to sink.  Sometimes we don’t even realize we’re sinking until we can’t breathe anymore.

While meditating on this problem we hear that small, still voice.   We are quickened to go pick up that Bible again.  For some reason we often believe that once we accept Jesus as our Saviour, He quits saving us.  It really doesn’t even make good sense.  Its as if we feel He doesn’t love us anymore because we suddenly see our own filthy rags…as if we didn’t have them on before our salvation.  Just because we never saw our unworthiness, doesn’t mean God didn’t…and He loved us then.   Once we are saved we suddenly feel He is no longer our Saviour but our Judge.  It is true, the Lord will one day be our Judge.  We will ALL have to give an account.  Instead of allowing God to perfect us, we begin to try and perfect ourselves.  We begin to judge ourselves and others.  If we could only see ourselves and others through God’s eyes, we would realize He has already saved us, now He wants to bless us, guide us and sanctify us.

When we see how far the Lord has brought us, why do we fear He won’t keep us through this storm?  He’s still there.  “After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you.”  1 Peter 5:10.  He hasn’t gone anywhere and He’s still in the saving business.  When we have been distracted or discouraged because our filthy rags has now been revealed to us as well, God still sent His only begotten Son to save us and He will not give up on us.  He’s still reaching out to show us His love.  He’s still here…seek Him while He can still be found.  – Donna Warren