Why doesn’t He help me?

Why is it that sometimes God seems to be so far away? It seems as if He has gone deaf or, worse still, doesn’t care about our pressing needs. We wonder, does He truly realise how much we need what we are asking for. But recently I had one of those moments of clarity when I began to see the whole issue from completely another point of view. In that moment I began to realise how difficult these moments might be for Him!

Several of our friends and family have suffered in the last weeks with a really nasty tummy bug causing severe vomiting attacks. The last to be affected was our youngest grand-daughter who is just over a year old. It was so pathetic to see her lying limp on the settee but what was even more tragic was her constant whimpering for something to eat or reaching out her hand to try to find her beaker of juice. She kept looking with pleading eyes at her mum and it must have seemed so incomprehensible that her usually loving, giving mum was not meeting her desperate needs.

Her mother, of course, very wisely was not acceding to her requests because each time she ate anything or gulped down her drink she was violently sick again. Mum had superior wisdom and was therefore resisting her perceived needs and was just offering her sips of water from a spoon every 5 minutes so she could gradually take in the necessary liquid. The little one recovered in due course but I wondered how this process felt for her mum? How challenging to resist her pleas and do what was the best thing instead of providing what her daughter thought she needed.

Sometimes we are so sure we know what we need but God understands what we truly need and what we definitely don’t at any given time. After all in Isaiah 55:8 it is recorded that the Lord said ‘My thoughts, are not like yours, and my ways are different from yours’.

Prayer: Heavenly Father, thank You for Your great love and faithfulness to us every day. Thank you that You always hear our cries and never neglect to answer us, even when we don’t understand what You are doing and why You are doing it. Help us Lord to trust You in those difficult times when we look to You with desperate hearts and wonder why You don’t respond as we feel you should. We pray this in Jesus’ mighty name, Amen.