This page was created on March 12, 2004
This page was last updated on March 12, 2004

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It is very similar to people's reactions to a perceived silence of God. The loudest silence perhaps was the Holocaust, but that silence can be found in personal lives as well. When God is known after such a silence, how do people respond? Do they seek God's approval as Andrei sought the father's approval, or do they rebel as Ivan did? Is it God who must prove Godself, or we who must prove ourselves to God?

God has no need of his creatures, but everything created has need of him.
--MEISTER ECKHART (C. 1260–C. 1327)

God is the beyond in the midst of our life.
--DIETRICH BONHOEFFER (1906–1945)

God the Father is both far away and near at hand; his voice is, at once, deafening in its thunderousness, and too still and small to be easily audible.
--MALCOLM MUGGERIDGE (1903–1990)

Psalm 22:1-31 (New Living Translation)
When God seems distant

My God, my God! Why have you forsaken me?
Why do you remain so distant?
Why do you ignore my cries for help?
Every day I call to you, my God, but you do not answer.
Every night you hear my voice, but I find no relief.

Yet you are holy.
The praises of Israel surround your throne.
Our ancestors trusted in you,
and you rescued them.
You heard their cries for help and saved them.
They put their trust in you and were never disappointed.

But I am a worm and not a man.
I am scorned and despised by all!
Everyone who sees me mocks me.
They sneer and shake their heads, saying,
"Is this the one who relies on the Lord?
Then let the Lord save him!
If the Lord loves him so much,
let the Lord rescue him!"

Yet you brought me safely from my mother's womb
and led me to trust you when I was a nursing infant.
I was thrust upon you at my birth.
You have been my God from the moment I was born.

Do not stay so far from me,
for trouble is near,
and no one else can help me.
My enemies surround me like a herd of bulls;
fierce bulls of Bashan have hemmed me in!
Like roaring lions attacking their prey,
they come at me with open mouths.
My life is poured out like water,
and all my bones are out of joint.
My heart is like wax,
melting within me.
My strength has dried up like sunbaked clay.
My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth.
You have laid me in the dust and left me for dead.

My enemies surround me like a pack of dogs;
an evil gang closes in on me.
They have pierced my hands and feet.
I can count every bone in my body.
My enemies stare at me and gloat.
They divide my clothes among themselves
and throw dice for my garments.

O Lord, do not stay away!
You are my strength; come quickly to my aid!
Rescue me from a violent death;
spare my precious life from these dogs.
Snatch me from the lions' jaws,
and from the horns of these wild oxen.

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