Missing God

Our children have a radar setting for their mother that immediately alerts them if she leaves the premises. They’ve had it since birth. If Mom wanted to get out of the house, I would manfully volunteer to keep watch during naptime. I’d ready myself. Snoring baby—check. Formula ready—check. TV on—check.

But the minute Mom backed out of the driveway, the kid would erupt with an overwhelming need for maternal arms. For the next two hours I would be reminded of how inadequate a substitute I was for their mother.

The boys are older, but their radar still works. They can be in their rooms playing but if she leaves, they wander past me, asking, “Where’s Mom?” This morning it happened again. “Where’s Mom?” the twelve-year-old asked.

“For crying out loud,” I exclaimed. “The woman left the room for five minutes to comb her hair, do you mind?”

I wouldn’t be surprised if one day, ten years from now, one of the boys calls from college the minute their mother leaves the house to ask, “Where’s Mom?”

In the same way, I’ve noticed that the alarm in our radar goes off when we can’t detect God. Financial ruin threatens and we say, “Where’s God?” A loved one faces a scary illness and we say, “Where’s God?”

In her novel, Fugitive Pieces, Anne Michaels has her character say “How do we know there’s a God? Because he keeps disappearing.” It’s a good point. If God did not exist, we wouldn’t miss him so. I wonder if that’s why atheists are so vocal about their views. They cry out because they miss the God they don’t believe in.

Every cell of our bodies, every fragment of our minds, reaches for God and feels the emptiness when he does not seem to be there.

Perhaps that urgent emptiness is a good thing. We are forced to search for God. And if we search, we are promised that we’ll find him (Matthew 7:7-8).

I’ve got to go now. I need to call and check on my Mom.