Where Are You?

Elohim is here.

But where are you?

I like my cup of tea. I like it more when I am drinking it with my friend around me- having a conversation, sharing dreams out loud, you know, bonding. I like tea with my friend and a beach staring at us. Imagine that. The comfort! On one of the days of my life, I had better than that. My family was there, all happy, having a table full of food and drinks and a whole day full of rest and adventure, or whichever we wanted to do. But something was missing.

I had a catch-up call with friends virtually, and we prayed over the coming year, which was a few hours away. We dreamed aloud and welcomed hearty predictions of what was to come. Ah, we prophesied marriage so much 🤣. God must have smiled a bit because even the first one took place 2 years after our eager wishes. And the loudest prophets are still single- but we bless our good Lord Whose hands hold our times and seasons, yeah?🙌🏾 (Psalm 31:15).

I sippeth.

After the call, I felt a hollow type of hope. A weak "Yes, it's going to be a good year".

I was coming out of a relationship that I felt defined my very essence. I was gutted that I would need to start all over again, because how do I even start asking grown men what their favourite colour is? Abeggggggggg.

I was also an unemployed woman with big dreams. Dreams that felt very far away. My circle was going through restructuring, and I realised that I barely knew people whom I claimed to be my best friends. Each member of my family tried to be there for me the best way they knew how, but they each had their own journeys to navigate. They couldn't be with me in the fire the whole time.

So, when everyone was shouting "Happy New Year!" with jubilation, mine was a nervous chuckle because, for me, I was going into a year I had no idea how to navigate.

The new year came and began ageing almost immediately because...Adulting. Month by month came new challenges, each being a higher wave than the last. Many times, I would be the clown of the party and yet cry myself to sleep because of how unseen I felt. It felt like everyone was moving on with life and leaving me at the last curb we parked at. I felt alone. Tshu! The ghettaux.

A Pink Bible and an Avalanche of Encounters

I bought myself a cute pink Bible when I was on campus. It was eventually replaced by another because the print is too small and I desire my eyesight for future use. So I keep it in case someone else may need a Bible.

It had been a while since I opened it intentionally. I felt like I had come to the end of myself, and so I began to read it. One chapter at a time. Slowly, because I wasn't reading for a CRE exam.

The more I got into the Word, something started to happen in me. I started to cry unprovoked while reading it. Something about the passages of people like Hagar, Gideon, David and Daniel made me feel so seen. My mind would be a mess with anxious thoughts and worries until I held that pink Bible and went through its pages. It was like my medicine. So, when I got a job and began to earn a regular income, I saw it as evidence that God was truly near. I did not leave my Bible behind as I entered a new season, so I started carrying it to work, and I would take my medicine in between patient visits and during lunch hours. I began understanding, not only from what the pink Bible said but from my experience, that God is near.

One night as I prayed, I asked God to give me a hug. To show me that He was near. I didn't get a hug in the physical understanding of it that night, but I slept like a baby. I woke up as a new lady. In the fire of affliction like the 3 Hebrew boys, only that now there was a fourth man. I began to experience encounters of mercy as I had never seen. Prayer felt easy. It was now my hiding place. I began to crave the things of God. I would watch hours' worth of sermons. I would fast. I would desire to serve God selflessly. I would fill my room with worship. When I was in this place, I felt invincible. Like nothing could shake me. I felt God near!

I would get into tough financial situations, and somehow money would show up at the exact time I needed it and with such drama! There is a time I was praying for money to buy basic items with because I had settled debt and paid for my utilities, and barely had anything left over. On that day, a patient just 'felt' like giving me money. And that money was enough for my needs. Ah, y'all need to know God ooooo😭 because how did Madam know I needed that amount to manage things?

Dry Days

Some days were tougher. I would pray, fast, read the Word, live righteously, and do all the things people say are necessary to encounter God daily. But nothing. Radio silence. I would then feel like a little child who has been ignored by their parent. It felt cold. I would then stop doing one or all the things I was doing altogether because I felt ignored. Sometimes, I would intensify in fervour. After all, I felt like I was not encountering God because I wasn't doing enough. Both extremes got me further away from the truth of God, and so I stumbled each time.

One time during such a day, I decided to read the Bible again and started from Genesis. God's question to Adam after Adam ate of the forbidden fruit caught me. God asked him, "Where are you?" (Genesis 3:9). Of course, God knew where he was in all senses. But He wanted Adam to locate himself, too.

“I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.” (Genesis 3:10 NKJV)

Adam answered according to where his spirit was: in fear and shame. Now we know that fear and shame are not in the presence of God. (“You will show me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore."-Psalm 16:11 NKJV, emphasis own).

God knew Adam was not with Him. But He wanted Adam to realise it as well.

Adam did not feel the comfort of God's presence because he was not in it. His sin had driven him into the reality of withering- a life outside God.

And God knew- because He is sensitive to every shift we have in our spirit and He knows where we are, even when we are not aware of this ourselves.

How many times do you drift away because you do not think God is near? Do you depend on goosebumps whenever you pray or signs and wonders for you to know that God is with you?

Friend, God is ever present. Even when you do not feel that He is. When Adam and Eve partook of the fruit, they most probably were not aware that the eyes of the Lord were on them the entire time. They arrived in His presence withered. Outside His will and without hope. God had mercy on them and clothed them, providing cover for their newly discovered shame. He also gave them a place to call home, although it was not where they were before.

It was sad to read, but I realised there and then what God wanted me to see. That God does not need to announce His presence to me daily. He is always near me, always watching. Sometimes silently, sometimes in a way I could not ignore.

The reason He is ever around us is that

1. He is omnipresent (everywhere)

2. He enjoys our presence. He delights in our company and enjoys our communion with Him. Psalm 147:11 NKJV: ”The Lord takes pleasure in those who fear Him, in those who hope in His mercy."

"Where are you?", then, is a question not just of location, but of loyalty and desire.

Hebrews 4:13 NKJV (emphasis own): "And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account."

Where are You?

I also realised that the times I was unaware of God's presence and certainty of help were times when the waves hit me hardest. When it was hard to breathe. When all hope seemed lost. I felt that, truly, if God were there, I would not need to go through such torments. My hardships would negate the possibility of a loving God being there for me.

And so, like Peter, I would begin to drown in the same water I once walked on.

One of the things God has been teaching me in my walk is that He is true to His Word. He never leaves nor forsakes (Deuteronomy 31:8). And that the sound of the roaring winds and waves may make it a bit difficult to hear His gentle voice urging me on, but they do not negate His presence.

On the days when my prayers raise all the hairs on my body, and I have encounters like nothing else: God is there.

On the days when I feel like not one word of my prayers went up to heaven, even after labouring: God is there.

On days when my life is looking up: God is there.

When my days look like a sad film that does not end: God is there.

Many times when I am about to forget that He is near and I am tempted to go my own way, I remember His words to Adam, "Where are you?" and I pause to pulse-check.

When someone asks you that question, they are most likely in the room, and you are not. So, now imagine an omniscient and omnipresent God asking you this (because unlike some humans who are liars, God is actually in the room o, and He is asking from a point of knowledge!).😮‍💨

Things like immorality, greed, lewdness, worry, anxiety, jealousy, anger, hatred and so on are strong currents that draw us away from His presence and can shipwreck us if we are not keen. Any wind that draws you out of His presence of joy will, at best, wither you. So, it is best to pause and ask where you are with God today.

So, What is There To Do?

Remain steadfast in well-doing, friend.

Remain postured before the Lord.

Some days will not be easy. You will not always feel like it. But commit to stay. If the spirit world depended on emotions to run, we would have no dependable God to rely on and no eternity to hope for.

God made emotions. He feels them, but He is not run by them.

So, stick it out- one prayer at a time. One chapter at a time. One day at a time.

Beloved, Elohim is here.

Where are you?

In love,

W. 🌹