CW Weekly Devotional - "Where is God?" > Clemson Wesley

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Tuesday, October 30, 2007

CW Weekly Devotional - "Where is God?"
By laneglaze @ 11:03 AM :: 120 Views :: 0 Comments ::

Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
Psalm 139:7, NIV

My God, my God, why have you foresaken me?
Psalm 22:1

Within a span of 24 hours, I hear incredibly heartbreaking news of seven students dying in a house fire on the coast. A few hours later, I hear about the death of a former colleague's elderly mother, followed a few minutes later by the news of a student's mother finally succumbing to her long battle with cancer. And all of this on the heels of a young Clemson student dying suddenly just a few days ago, while warming up to play an intramural football game. Needless to say, I've heard from many students and parents who are struggling with hard questions: Where is God? Why would God allow such tragedy? Does God even exist?

The same Psalm that I quoted in last week's devotional, the 139th, seemed a fitting Scripture to quote again in light of these events and the questions that have followed. My guess is that another Psalm, the 22nd, has been on the minds of many, just as it was on Jesus' mind before his painful death on the cross. "My God, my God, why have your foresaken me?"

Earlier today a friend told me of a story that was shared last night by Barbara Brown Taylor, who was meeting with a group at Clemson UMC. In a sermon on the Book of Job entitled "The Problem of Pain," Taylor shares the story of how William Sloane Coffin, former chaplain at Yale and Pastor to Riverside Church in New York, responded harshly to those within his congregation who were trying to comfort him after the loss of his 25 year old son who had died in an auto accident. Brown's retelling of the story goes like this:

The night after his son died, Coffin said, he was sitting in his sister's living room outside of Boston when a nice-looking middle-aged woman came in balancing a column of quiches on her arm. When she saw him sitting there she shook her head. As she headed for the kitchen he heard her say sadly over her shoulder, "I just don't understand the will of God." Coffin's fuse was about a quarter of an inch long at that point, and he exploded.

"I'll say you don't, lady!" he roared, jumping up out of his chair. "Do you think it was the will of God that Alex never fixed that lousy windshield wiper of his, that he was probably driving too fast in such a storm, that he probably had had a couple of "frosties" too many? Do you think it is God's will that there are no street lights along that stretch of road, and no guard rail separating the road from Boston Harbor?"

Nothing made him crazier during those first few days after his son's death, he said, than the incapacity of otherwise intelligent people to understand that God does not go around causing wrecks and killing people. It is hard enough to bury a son, but to make God the executioner? Of course that was not what the woman meant to be saying. She meant to say something about the sovereignty of God, but Coffin has some advice for her and all her well-meaning kin. "The one thing that should never be said when someone dies is, 'It is the will of God.' Never do we know enough to say that."

His consolation, he said, was knowing that it was NOT the will of God that Alex die - that when the waves of Boston Harbor closed over his son's head, God's heart was the first to break.

The Good News is this: just as God did not abandon Jesus to the cross, God does not abandon us in our time of pain and suffering either. In fact, the Psalms remind us over and over again that God is always with us - an ever-present help during times of trouble (46:1). While we may feel foresaken, God is always with us, especially when we find ourselves in the depths of Sheol (139:8), in the valley of the shadow of death (23:4).

As Jesus promised, may all those who mourn on this day be comforted by the God whose heart breaks with ours.

With love,
lane

Rev. C. Lane Glaze
Director, Clemson Wesley Foundation
Campus Minister, Clemson UMC
P.O. Box 1703, Clemson, SC 29633
(864) 654-5547 (o); (864) 207-9135

www.clemsonwesley.com

Feel free to forward this email to a friend. The Clemson Wesley Weekly Devotional is a ministry of the Clemson Wesley Foundation, the United Methodist Church’s ministry to students on the campus of Clemson University. The purpose of this email is to look at issues relevant to the life of Clemson students through the lens of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. If you would like your name added to this list, email Rev. Lane Glaze at glaze@clemson.edu.

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