One of my all-time favourite verses is Psalm 46:1,

“God is our refuge and strength, A very present help in trouble”.

He’s not only present with us in trouble, He’s very present. That suggests to me that He’s on high alert, ready to spring into action at the first sign of distress.

If that is so, then why do things go woefully wrong sometimes? They may start off rocky but that’s still ok, we can still cope. The waves are a bit choppy but we can still paddle; we may or may not be praying for help yet. Then the waves get stronger, whipping the sides of our vessel and threatening to capsize us. Things just got real and have officially gone from rocky to bad. At this point, we are definitely praying, we’ve maybe thrown some fasting in for good measure. God is very present, surely He’ll step in and rescue us any minute now? But then seemingly in a blink of an eye, things go from bad to worse. And you wonder if God is really present as the scriptures promised.

Perhaps you’d done something unforgivable and now His ears were closed to your requests. Or maybe you didn’t pray enough or fast for long enough. These are the thoughts that flash through our minds as we try to figure out what went wrong and why the God of our salvation didn’t save us.

There are so many instances in the bible where it looked as if not only was God not present with His people, He had outright abandoned them. So many examples where things got worse for upright men through no fault of their own and those we’d consider innocent seemed to be paying for the mistakes of others. So, where was God? Why did He let His people suffer? Two popular bible stories jumped out at me when I started thinking about this and I’ve shared these examples with you below.

In the Wilderness

Through no fault of her own, Hagar the slave was pregnant. Her masters had their own agenda and had abused their positions of power with the end result that Hagar was left with no choice but to go on the run. This story has never seemed fair to me. Where was God when Sarah decided to lose her mind and give her slave to Abraham? Or when Abraham refused to protect her when Sarah started to maltreat the slave in her care? (Genesis 16:6). Hagar ended up in the wilderness probably contemplating the slim chances of her making it to the next town (Shur) alive—a woman on her own with no money or resources and with a baby on the way.

To say the outlook was bleak is an understatement. The wilderness is a place many of us can probably relate to in one way or another. That seemingly impassable place of desolation and full-on attack from the enemy of our souls.

But the Lord showed up. God told her to go back to her masters but not without first showing her that He valued the child she carried. He gave her a promise and hope just when she needed it. Hagar who had felt abandoned and worthless suddenly realised she had so much value in the eyes of the only One who truly mattered.

“Thereafter, Hagar used another name to refer to the Lord , who had spoken to her. She said, “You are the God who sees me.” She also said, “Have I truly seen the One who sees me?” (Genesis 16:13 NLT)

I’d like to think she returned home and they all lived in happily after. But unfortunately, their unusual family dynamics break down and 14 years later, Hagar was back in the wilderness, full of despair and alone. This time she had been kicked out after her masters had their own child. To make matters worse, what little water she had left home with was used up and now there didn’t even seem to be any water around unlike the last time. Hagar fully expected to die (Genesis 21:15-16).

However, in the midst of her profound despair, the Lord who sees her showed up again and renewed His promise to her and her son. We don’t know the exact details but we know that Hagar and Ishmael survived in the wilderness and the Lord kept His promise. “So God was with the lad; and he grew and dwelt in the wilderness, and became an archer” (Genesis 21:20 NKJV)

In both instances, it seems God was present with Hagar after all. It didn’t look like it when things were going wrong but we can see that He had been watchful all along and stepped at the right time (read: His right time, not ours).

Maybe what you’re going through seems more like being in a fire. Things are heating up with no sign of relief and you are wondering “where is God?”.

In the Fire

Hopefully, my next example will give you hope. There were once three Jewish men who were so committed to serving God that they defied a royal decree to bow and worship the king Nebuchadnezzar’s gold image. Even the very real threat of been thrown into a furnace didn’t sway them. These men ruled over the province of Babylon (Daniel 3:12-13). They had position, money and power as well as their lives to lose by not obeying their king.

But not only did they flatly refuse to bow down to the golden image of himself, they were also very blunt in their reply to him. “Even if God does not deliver us, we will never bow down to idols” (paraphrased; Daniel 3:17-18).

This would have been tantamount to goading Nebuchadnezzar. I can just imagine his outrage. Veins popping on his forehead and neck, his face suffused with blood and that one tick showed up again at the corner of his mouth. Some of the other royal officials would have been fidgeting in their seats wondering if they would be part of the collateral damage whilst the ones who had snitched on Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego would have sat there smugly, not even trying to disguise the looks of glee on their faces as they awaited the King’s ruling. Surely, this would be the downfall of these think-they-are-better-than-the-rest-of-us goody-two-shoe foreigners? Well, the king did not disappoint. He commanded the furnace to be heated up seven times hotter than normal and for the three men to be bound and thrown in.

Now, the first time I read this story, I full-on expected God to show up at this point in some miraculous way. Surely, they wouldn’t be thrown into the fire? Obviously, it would be too late by then. I like so many of us, so readily forget that God’s ways are not our ways (Isaiah 55:8-9). From the beginning of a thing, He has already seen the end (Isaiah 46:10) and is working in everything for our good and His glory (Rom 8:28).

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were indeed thrown in and the fire was so hot that its heat – just the heat – was intense enough to kill the people that threw them in. How much more those that are thrown in? Then the miracle happened. Not only were the three men who had been bound, walking around in the fire but there was a fourth man with them! Nebuchadnezzar couldn’t believe his eyes,

“Then King Nebuchadnezzar was astonished; and he rose in haste and spoke, saying to his counselors, “Did we not cast three men bound into the midst of the fire?” They answered and said to the king, “True, O king.” “Look!” he answered, “I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire; and they are not hurt, and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God”. (Daniel 3:24‭-‬25 NKJV)

The Jews were delivered out of the fire without any sign that they’d ever been in the furnace. No burns or singe marks, not even a whiff of smoke. Amazing.

Again, we see that God had been present with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, even though it didn’t look like that when things were going from bad to worse.

God showed up. Not how or when we expected but in a way that gave all the glory to Him and clearly showed who the true God is.

In both these stories and many others from the bible (remember Paul and his many trials, Joseph who was kidnapped and sold into slavery by his own brothers after God had promised him a glorious future, or David who lived on the run for many years simply because he was God’s chosen king), we can see that the presence of trouble doesn’t necessarily mean that God is absent. In fact, we can be reassured that He is present as He has promised in Psalm 46:1. His deliverance may not come how or when we expect but He is in full control. Like the Travis Greene song, it’s ‘Intentional’

Let’s take comfort that He is working it out even if it doesn’t look like it (especially if it doesn’t look like it) and that at the right time, we shall also emerge out of the wilderness or fire victorious.

“…At the right time, I, the Lord , will make it happen” (Isaiah 60:22 NLT).

Like Hagar, God truly sees you as you go through your wilderness experience and like with three Jewish men, He is walking with you in that fiery trial. He has in fact promised that,

“I will be your God throughout your lifetime— until your hair is white with age. I made you, and I will care for you. I will carry you along and save you” (Isaiah 46:4 NLT)

So you can trust that indeed the Lord “is a present help in times of trouble” (Psalm 46:1).

This post was originally written for Five Minute Friday but may also be linked up at these places.

(Image credit: Davide Cantelli from Unsplash)