“Where was God? Part 2

Yesterday I shared with my friends on face book  how five year  old Themba son asked me a stunning question when I was reading a book to him about President Barack Obama life. I was in the middle of telling him about the race relations of black and white people in America when Barack Obama was born. I  told him that black people were not even allowed to be with people those days. And that was when he fired me with a sobering question “ Where was God? After hesitating for a few seconds to answer him, a revelation came to me that it was God who told “the Good man” Martin Luther King Jr to preach the message of hope and love to everybody. That is how I answered him, but somehow I feel that was just part of the answer to the question.

My son's question is not an isolated, millions of people around the world are face this question everyday regardless of religion race and creed. They are confronted by this great and fundamental question in the middle of such overwhelming calamities such as wars, famine, hunger, deaths and diseases and sickness  of all kinds. There are some who's religion does not allow them to question God. I do not even know that if that is is considered  questioning God. In their hearts and minds this great question comes over and over again, probably without any answer at all. This question has not only haunted individuals but nations as well.

Most recently here in America we have seen communities shattered by the evil of  gun violence madness wrath at an alarming rate. We have seen kids as young  as five old brutally murdered in  elementary schools and kinder gar ten. We have seen young and old innocent lives taken suddenly in an instant of madness alike without discrimination to gender , race and creed. No day passes without a single gun victim in the United States alone. Cities like Chicago, New york, Oakland CA, Detroit and Memphis are among the leading murder capital of the world. Most of these case are drug and poverty related crimes. I dare to say that some of them are mere hate. Strangely enough some of them confound even the experts when it come to motives.

We have seen mother nature wipe out the civilizations.  In the form of Tsunamis, hurricanes, tornadoes, volcanoes and floods just to mention a few. We have seen villages in Africa ravaged by  civil wars, malaria and malnutrition. Generations have been wiping out generations. In this decade alone we have seen almost every form of curse and misfortune unleashed to human kind if you will. Time will not allow me to talk about the the world most infamous and notorious man, Adolf Hitler. He is known for orchestrating  all kinds of evil ways of killing and eliminating Jews.

What I am going to say about black people  from Africa who were enslaved against their will for over four hundred years in America?  Where was God? When Africans were colonized in their homelands  moved by force from fertile and productive lands to lands infested with mosquitoes and animals at gun point? There are many examples of situations that makes us question God, when we do not have clear answers.  On September eleven about 10 years ago two planes hit the twin towers of  the World Trade centre in New York killing thousands of passengers and workers in those buildings.
 Where was God?

Perhaps to try and best answer this question, let us put it this way. Where is God right now? In order for us to know where God is in the near future when we are confounded by something big and unimaginable situation and calamity. We might need to know where God is right now at this very moment! God forbids that something like that happens again forcing asks us as both nations and families to ask ourselves that question. Isaiah 6v I -6 reads The year that king Uzziah died I saw the Lord! he was sitting on a lofty throne, and the temple was filled with his glory. 2 Hovering about him were mighty, six winged seraphs. With two of tier wings they covered their faces, with  other two they covered their feet, and with two they flew.3 In a great antiphonal chorus they sang, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts; the whole earth is filled with his glory" Living Bible.

It is not known if the writer of this passage I Isaiah was referring to the time frame, when he said in the year that King Uzziah died I saw the lord and so. He goes on to describe the splendour and majestic of the vision that he saw. Point here is that God was on his throne whether Uzziah was a good King  or not
Is God always on his throne?

  Rev 1 v 8 -12 Reads " I am the A and the Z, the Beginning and the End of all things"says God, who is the Lord, the All powerful One who is and was and is coming again! (9) It is I, your brother John, a fellow sufferer for the Lord's sake, who am writing this letter to you. I, too, have shared the patience Jesus gives, and we shall share his kingdom!I was in the island of Patmos, exiled there for preaching  of the word, and for telling what I knew about Jesus Christ. (10)It was the Lord's day and I was worshipping, when suddenly I heard a  loud voice behind me that sounded like a  trumpet blast,(11a)saying "I am A and Z, the First and the Last"

That was John who they call "John the revelator" describing his encounter with God during his time of persecution. It is said that he had not physical eyes, they had cut them off because of preaching the word of God. From verse 12 to 20 in chapter one, he is still describing the  majestic and power of the presence of God. This is a man who is suffering for the God if you will! Time will not allow me to talk about Stephen who was stoned to death, yet in his death he saw God sited on the throne in heaven.

 Apostle Paul could not have put it much better, he  said in Rom 8v31(b) If God is on our side who can be against us? 35 Who then can ever keep Christ's love from us? When we have trouble or calamity, when we are hunted down or destroyed, is it because he doesn't love us anymore? And if we are hungry, or penniless, or in danger, or threatened with death, has God deserted us? 36 No, for the scripture tell us that for his sake we must be ready to face death at every moment of the day- we are like sheep awaiting slaughter, 37 but despite all this overwhelming victory is ours through Christ who loved us enough to die for us. 38 For I am convinced that nothing can ever  separate us from his love. Death and life can't.  In other words whether we live or die we cannot be separated from the love of God. Else where he says, for me to live is Christ, but to die is gain.  The scripture even say that "you who were baptized to his death". You are in union with Christ through his death. I want to submit that whether we are having good or bad times. God is always God sited on the throne.