“Lord, Are You There?”
The LORD directs the steps of the godly. He delights in every detail of their lives. (Psalm 37:23 NLT)
After the Crucifixion, two discouraged disciples thought their plans had gone south and there was no hope for them. But as they walked along the road to Emmaus, who joined them on their journey? It was Jesus himself, the risen Lord. But they didn’t recognize Him.
He effectively said, “Guys, why the long faces? What’s the problem?”
“You must be the only person in Jerusalem who hasn’t heard about all the things that have happened there the last few days,” they replied.
“What things?”
“The things concerning Jesus of Nazareth, who was a Prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered Him to be condemned to death, and crucified Him,” they said. “But we were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel. Indeed, besides all this, today is the third day since these things happened” (see Luke 24:18–21 NKJV).
Christ himself was walking with them, and at the end of their journey, they finally realized it.
Life can be that way too. There are times when we sense the presence of the Lord. Then there are times when we don’t feel God’s presence and don’t see Him at work. We wonder whether God has abandoned us. The answer is never. He never has and never will. He said, “I will never fail you. I will never abandon you” (Hebrews 13:5 NLT).
As Christians, we do not believe in coincidence; we believe in providence. The Bible says, “The LORD directs the steps of the godly. He delights in every detail of their lives” (NLT).
There are times in life when God seems absent, but He never is. God is always at work in the life of the believer, every hour of every day.
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