Job 23:8-12 “Look, I go forward, but He is not there, and backward, but I cannot perceive Him; when He works on the left hand, I cannot behold Him; when He turns to the right hand, I cannot see Him. But He knows the way that I take; when He has tested me, I shall come forth as gold. My foot has held fast to His steps; I have kept His way and not turned aside. I have not departed from the commandment of His lips; I have treasured the words of His mouth more than my necessary food”.

God is so vast. He is omniscient, omnipotent, and mighty. The fact is, He is so vast that we could never fully understand Him or His ways regardless of our intimate relationship. Yet despite this fact, we forget a key component of our interactions with Him: we may not understand Him, but He understands us. It is possible to feel that in His vastness, He couldn’t possibly remember insignificant us, but He not only remembers us, He knows the way we take. “O LORD, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways” (Psalm 139:1-3).

Even when it seems as though God has completely removed His presence from our lives, He is there all along if we are following His commandments. When we cling to His word, we become more aware of His love for us. No matter the trial, no matter the distance we may feel from God, He is there and if we can learn to worship Him in the midst of those trying times, we will be as good as gold.

“My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. How precious to me are your thoughts, God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand - when I awake, I am still with you” (Psalm 139:15-18). cc

Additional verses to study: Psalm 16:5-11; Proverbs 25:2; Isaiah 45; 55:8-13; Jeremiah 29:11, 33:3; Matthew 28:20; 1 Corinthians 2:9-10, 13;9-12, Revelation 21:1-7.