Where Were You?

It was May 1960 something and was attending Mass with my father.

Vatican 2 had been implemented and when I walked into the church, there was a small table in the aisle that contained two bowls.

I was asked to take a communion wafer from one bowl and place it in the other to signify that I desired to receive communion that day during the Mass.

Because I was young (around seven or eight) and was in a hurry, I accidentally bumped the table on my way to my pew; spilling the communion wafers onto the floor.

Without really thinking or having any remorse, I continued to my pew assuming that someone else would clean the mess up and that my dad was right behind me.

I found my spot and sat down wondering where my dad was…not realizing that he was the person who was cleaning up my mess. My mind quickly wandered onto other distractions as I looked around the church to see if I could find a girl on whom I had a secret crush

About ten minutes later, my dad came to the pew. I’m guessing that discernment wasn’t one of my gifts back then because before he was able to ask me why I had walked away, I asked him; “Where were you?”

I was upset that he had taken off instead of following me to the pew so I turned away from him (which is probably why I didn’t see his face).

Here I was, mad at my dad and he had done nothing wrong. Instead of yelling at me for making a mess, embarrassing him, and then walking away, he stooped down and cleaned up my mess.

He chose to take a position of a servant and cleaned up my mess.

And I was ungrateful.

We do that with our Heavenly Father (dad); don’t we? We think that we are following Him and assume that He is following us to where we are going, and we don’t realize that He has gone elsewhere as we have gone our own direction.

To make things worse, we get mad at Him and raise our fists to the air as we cry out; “Where were You?”

We are totally oblivious to the fact that He was cleaning up the mess that we had just made. The mess that we ignorantly assumed somebody else would take care of.

We demand an answer… and He had done nothing wrong.

“Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men.” (Philippians 2:5-7)

Instead of yelling at us for making a mess, embarrassing Him, and then walking away, He chose to take a position of a servant, stooped down, and cleaned up our mess.

My friend, just because you can’t always see God (or most of the time can’t figure out where He is), doesn’t mean that He isn’t there.

Just because you can’t always understand or get your questions answered, doesn’t mean that He doesn’t care.

The Lord spoke through the prophet Isaiah and said;

“Fear not, for I am with you;
Be not dismayed, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you, Yes, I will help you,
I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.’

For I, the Lord your God, will hold your right hand,
Saying to you, ‘Fear not, I will help you.’ (Isaiah 41:10 &13)

He is there; He does care and He wants to help you. In fact, He laid down His life in exchange for your mess.

“And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.” (Philippians 2:8)

And like a good dad, He is willing to clean up your mess. He is asking us to agree with Him (confess) and receive the gift of salvation.

“Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Philippians 2:9-11)

All Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.