Faithful God

Know therefore that the Lord your God is God; he is the faithful God.

I can only speak out of my experience. God has been faithful to me; he has brought right things that have been going wrong. He has been with me through the hard times – he hasn’t intervened miraculously in ways I would have chosen, but he has never left nor forsaken me. Sometimes he has felt closer than other times; sometimes I have felt his presence tingling from my head to my toes in a physical way. Other times he has felt more distant, but he has enabled me to cling on despite that.

But when I think about the experiences of most of the world’s population, I don’t know how to speak faith into their experiences. Those who have been traumatised and victimised by horrific wars; those who are captives in countries where there is no freedom of expression and where the religion is prescribed and must be followed. Those who have been born into poverty or been victims of racial or sexual abuse or exploitation; those who have become addicted to substances which now won’t release them. Those who have no jobs and no hope.

How can they relate to that statement? Know therefore that the Lord your God is God; he is the faithful God. How can I write, speak, or pray into such situations about which I really know nothing?

We used to sing a chorus in the 80s, about loving one another (in the church), declaring that that would be a powerful witness to the outside world that Jesus is Lord of our lives. As we held Him up, we sang, he would draw others in. But I wonder.  If a person has been victimised by any of the things above, or other situations, how can they become believers just by seeing that the church loves each other and looks after each other? Such a person might long to be a part of such a church, but may feel more alienated than ever.

The big question is how do we show and tell others that Jesus loves them, when all of their experiences deny that?