God is present in the messes we have made. He is not threatened, confused, or stumped by them. Just as he was in the garden when Adam and Eve sinned, he is with us in our hard and rocky places. As Harold L. Senkbeil writes, “Life growing hard doesn’t mean that he’s left you.”
God is often concealed in our suffering. We do not always recognize him because he hides himself—his glory hidden behind weakness, darkness, and the cross. Jesus’ divinity was hidden in his humanity, and God is often nearest to us in our lowest circumstances. We see only in part and know only in part, and God is content to leave us in mystery.
We are tempted to recognize God only in blessings and happy times, attributing ease and prosperity to his presence while resisting the truth that God also comes in the thick cloud. If God is present in suffering, then he does not always remove it from us—but he holds us within it. Blessings and answered prayers are real, but they are not the full picture; they are the comfortable one.
Modern Christianity, especially prosperity preaching, often promises gain rather than the cross. Yet Christ promised suffering: “Take up your cross… whoever wants to live must die.” When Adam sinned, God sought him—Adam ran from God.
Our circumstances prove nothing about God’s nearness. Prosperity does not mean he is closer, nor does suffering mean he is farther away. God does not reveal his faithfulness through circumstances; he uses them, like a carpenter uses tools, to shape us—and to do so, he must be near. God is present and at work in all things, not mastered by circumstances but Lord over them.
My Faith Place 