Many of us may remember (and will never forget) the message of the Energizer Bunny. With ostensibly more energy packed into it, the Energizer battery claimed to outlast all others brands. Nuanced behind this commercial burned on our brains is the idea of scientific observation: load the mobile bunnies with batteries – one with an Energizer, the others with competitor brands – and watch them move until they wear out. The observer will find that after others have stopped moving, the bunny with the Energizer battery continues. During that period in which the Energizer has outlasted the others comes the all-too-familiar phrase: “Still going!”
The word “still” assumes an ending point in action or condition, as in: “drink it while it is still hot.” Implied in this sentence is that the drink will at some point cease to be hot just as the bunny will eventually cease to go.
What, then, could we mean when in times of distress we hear ourselves saying “God is still there,” or “God is still in control?” Will God ever cease to be “there?” Is God’s power exhaustible? Is there anything over which God is not sovereign? At the national memorial service in the aftermath of September 11, 2001 a prayer was worded: “God, please show us that you are still there.” At the root of such a request is a perception of God that judges him by our circumstances - as if he is like us. Only created life in a fallen world gets fatigued and wears out. God does not. We are contingent (we must have something to keep us going) God is not. He is the infinite, self-existent One. God is, and he is the supreme absolute. The word “still” imposes human limitations on his infinitude.
God has made known to us that the only ones who must fear the absence of God are those who pass into eternity having rejected their Creator and his redeeming love. For them, he will be inaccessible, but his presence will be a consuming fire.
We must perceive and understand all of life’s circumstances in the light of the nature and character of God. That is what he revealed to Job. That is what he has revealed to us. Count on it. Sometimes God seems to be silent, but that does not mean that he is not there or does not care. It only means he is calling us to trust him for who he is and what he has already said.
Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.
He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength.
Isaiah 40:28-29
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