Where Have You Been?

And Gideon said to him, “Please, my Lord, if the LORD is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all his wonderful deeds that our fathers recounted to us . . .  But now the LORD has forsaken us and given us into the hand of Midian.” Judges 6:13

As I sat in church a while back, we sang a song about the goodness of God. All my life you have been faithful. Knowing what some of those in the audience were going through, I wondered how they felt about those lyrics. During terrible life tragedies, could they really sing joyfully about what God had done in their lives? All my life you have been so good to me. If I’d lost what they’d lost, I think I’d be questioning God’s love. If I were in their place and I had to sing honestly, I imagine I’d be asking, God, where have you been?

I’ve questioned God. Even though the misery of my addiction was self-inflicted, I still blamed God. You made me this way. As I was losing everything, I reminded God how I’d begged him a thousand times to remove my self-destructive appetite. Why didn’t you fix me? Where were you? How could you let this happen?

This was Gideon’s question in today’s passage. In the story, the Israelites wandered from God, who allowed the Midianites to conquer them. In their oppression, the Israelites cried out to God who heard their prayers and planned to raise up a deliverer – Gideon. God sent an angel to Gideon, informing him of the plan. The LORD is with you . . . (Judges 6:12). To this, Gideon objected. If the LORD is with us, why then has all this happened to us?

Gideon’s view was honest, but myopic. He couldn’t see how Israel had brought this pain on itself. He could only see the suffering that he blamed on God. For whatever reason, God didn’t explain himself. He simply told Gideon to go do something about it. Go in this might of yours and save Israel from the hand of Midian (Judges 6:14).

I had a similar experience. When I demanded to know why God allowed me to suffer, I didn’t get the explanation I thought I deserved. Instead, he insisted that I go do something about my misery – Go to treatment. Change your entire life. Daily abandon yourself to follow me. Looking back, that wasn’t the answer I wanted, but it was the answer I needed. Like Gideon, in my misery, my perspective was obtuse, leading me to question God. In response, God didn’t explain himself. Rather, he simply insisted that I follow him, which was the only adequate answer to my misery.