Where is God?

A few years ago we were making a promotional video for Lakota Journey and I distinctly remember jumping right up and volunteering to be on camera responding to one small yet loaded question, “Why come to the reservation?” My response was simple- Because God is here and God is moving in this place and if you just simply come, God will invite you to participate in his amazing work. And there’s nothing better than that- there isn’t a more genuine way to experience God than to immerse yourself in God’s work by serving others.

I believed that too- I believed it in such a real way. The place where I saw God most clearly was on this very reservation. I saw God working is unexpected ways to bring about God’s glory. I lived each day not knowing what it would bring but knowing that God would reign. I woke each morning expecting God to work- expecting God to change people’s situations, expecting God to reach across cultural barriers to build friendships, expecting God to break the bonds of generational poverty, alcoholism and abuse, expecting God to bring hope into the lives of everyone around me and expecting God to fulfill that hope. I knew the world was broken but I also knew that God was actively fixing it- God was actively mending hearts and healing the hurt and empowering a nation to overcome years of oppression.

I also knew that if I continued to put myself on the reservation, I would continue to be invited to be a part of it even if I didn’t understand how. That’s why my heart continued to long for this place and why when God put everything into place, I moved my life out here.

It’s amazing how quickly one can lose that fire and that faith. To be completely honest, I’m not in that place anymore. I don’t expect God to move. I don’t look for God in all situations. I’ve become cynical. All I see is brokenness and when things become more broken, I am not at all surprised. In fact, I expect it. Even when it seems lives are improving, when it appears that someone’s situation is getting better, I expect it all to go wrong. When people have ideas that they feel will work towards justice and the Kingdom, I expect it to fail.  All I see is brokenness. All I see is pain. All I see is hopelessness. And God seems so far away. And I’m not sure how I got to this place. Or how I’m going to get past it. But I know I have to. I feel so weak and so broken and so useless and so lost. Where is God? And why can’t I see God any longer? How can God be in a world that constantly falls? In ministries that hurt people (even if that hurt is unintentional)? In families where children are regularly abused? In places where teens who have no support system turn to gang culture? In the lives of those who insist on remaining in abusive relationships? In homes where toddlers are left alone so their parents can go get drunk? On streets where kids I’ve grown to love get the living crap beat out of them because other kids are bored? In homes where children get away with treating loving parents like crap? I don’t know.

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