Sunday, September 11, 2005

Adam, where are you?

That's such a rhetorical question. God always knows where we are -- physically, mentally, spiritually, geographically. He knows the exact distance our hearts are from his. And he draws us continually nearer.

He knows where I've been.

Lately, I've been in a tiny not-town called Frog Jump (unincorporated). God has once again disrupted my daily norm, stripped away those things I'd come to think of as comforting, familiar and home. He's stripped away those things I found comfortable and placed me in the middle of a foreign land, pushed me toward another goal, making me take yet another step. And I praise him for it.

It's easy to write about my current struggles or upsets -- ultimately, they are of little matter. It's harder to write about those displaced by the winds, rain, floods and death. It's harder still to know that this is not a condition limited to Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi. Throughout our world, there are people trapped in poverty, paralyzed by hunger, suffering, mistreated, and -- above all -- lost.

And to all of us, God calls daily: Where are you?

Sometimes he calls with the voice of a brother in need: hungry, barefoot, abused and broken -- where are you? Blind, deaf and dying -- where are you? Haunted by past and present with only dread and fear for the future -- where are you?

Where are you?