As Reformation Day approaches I took my devotion last night from Luther Day by Day, and his thoughts centered on Isaiah 45.15:"Verily thou art a God that hidest thyself, O God of Israel, the Saviour." Does it ever feel to you as it did to Luther that God hides himself from you? Luther felt that at times that the enemies of God did what they liked with God's Word and with Christians, and that in Luther's words, "...He lets us call and cry, and keeps silence as though he were writing a poem, or were preocupied with something else, or were out in the fields, or were alseep and could not hear us." Luther knew what it was like to wrestle in prayer with God in the dark times of his life. All of us have such times when it appears that God is silent. Yet Luther knew too that God does not sleep or slumber. He always watches over us. He said at the end of that devotion, "But on the day of His Advent He will take away the veil and He will appear as a great God and will do justice in His Name, so that people will say, 'Behold, He is the Lord and Saviour'."
The Lord is near us. He watches over us with great care, but we don't always see it. We don't know the plans He has for us, and sometimes that frustrates us, well, at least it does me. In such times when I think the Lord is silent, I flee to the Word of God. Resist the Devil and he will flee from you. We aren't alone with these wrestlings; our brothers and sisters in Christ struggle too, but often we do not know. Prayer is a necessity, and yet I find that prayer does not always come easy. Dishes wait to be washed, floors vacuumed, and a sundry other things, but to the needful thing we find it hard to do. We aren't alone in that either. Keep pressing on and fight the good fight of faith. This is the day the Lord hath made, I will rejoice and be glad in it.
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