December 20, 2019 – Acts 17:27

God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.
—Acts 17:27

Two people are in deep suffering; the same great woe has fallen on each of them.79 They need, with their poor bruised and mangled souls, some healing, some strength that they cannot make for themselves. Why does one of them seem to get it and the other fail? Why does one lift up the head and go looking at the stars, while the other bends and stoops and goes with eyes on the ground? Is one God’s favorite more than the other? Is God near to one and far from the other? We imagine such unreal discriminations and favoritisms! We think that one soul is held in the great warm hands, while the other is cast out on the cold ground! But then comes in our truth: “He is not far from each one of us.” The difference, then, cannot be in God and in his willingness; it must be in the souls.
What, then, can we say to anyone who seems to be left comfortless when others all around are gathering in plentiful comfort? We may say this: God is comforting and helping you even when you do not know it. Do not for a moment imagine that God’s help is limited by what you can feel and recognize. If you are looking to God for help, he is sending you help although you do not feel it. Feeling is not the test. Your soul is feeding on it, though your eyes may not see it, any more than they can see the sweet and wholesome air by which you live.
In something that you are, not in anything that God is, must be the secret of the darkness of your soul. Do not let yourself for one moment think or feel that God has turned his back on you, that he has gone away from you and left you to your fate. Don’t ask yourself, If he had, who are you that you should call him back? Who is he that he should turn round at your calling? That way lies despair. No, “He is not far from each one of us.” He is not far from you. You must turn to him, and when you turn, his light is already shining full on you. What a great truth it is, how full of courage, this truth that we may go away from God, but God cannot go away from us! How God loves his own great character of faithfulness! He cannot turn his back on his child. If his face is not shining on you, it must be that your back is turned on him. And if you have turned away from him, you can turn back to him again. That is the courage which always comes to one who takes all the blame of life on himself or on herself and does not cast it on God. In humility there is always comfort and strength.
—Phillips Brooks