God, Where Are You?

Most of us experience confusion as we wait for God to answer our prayers. Although we might not admit it, painful questions fill our minds.

God, why aren’t you helping me? Are you even paying attention?

And then the most painful of all: God, where are you?

I’m certain those same questions thudded through the hearts of the Israelites as they endured the longest wait described in the Bible. More than 400 years passed as they waited for God to keep His promise and free them from captivity under Pharaoh’s harsh rule.

But take a look at a hope-filled treasure we find embedded right at the end of their long wait:

During their victorious exit from Egypt, as they are on the way to the promised land, we read these words: “Now the length of time the Israelite people lived in Egypt was 430 years. At the end of the 430 years, to the very day, all the Lord’s divisions left Egypt.” (Exodus 12:40-41)

EXACTLY 430 years after their captivity began, to the very day, they received the promised rescue. I love the purposeful precision of God’s plans emphasized in the wording.

Although the Israelites undoubtedly struggled with feeling abandoned during their many years of slavery, God had never left them and never taken His eyes off them.

Our Almighty God wasn’t wringing His hands in worry wondering when a deliverer would arrive on the scene. He hadn’t broken into an anxiety-induced sweat as He grabbed His daily planner and desperately tried to devise a strategy to defeat Pharaoh.

Our Eternal, Immortal, All-Powerful, Unchanging God had every detail perfectly planned and set into motion even before the creation of the world.

David writes in Psalm 139:16 many generations later, “All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.”

When we trust God in our difficulties, we are not abandoning ourselves to a reckless, haphazard God. We are entrusting ourselves to a God who delights in loving us, who is passionate about pouring out good gifts, and who has already in His sovereignty and power determined the very day of our rescue.

The Champion of Heaven is always with us, upholding our cause and working on our behalf. Not one detail of our past, present or future has escaped His notice.

Let’s pray that God will stir within us a steadfast, passionate faith in our long waits, trusting that in His precise and purposeful plans for our lives, we will experience His rescue on the very day He has lovingly determined.