“Abducted Nigerian girls still missing…” the headline reads.
Some eight months later, the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls is a distant memory.
But I imagine the horrors are just as real for them…for those precious girls.
I wonder if their hope of rescue is slipping away. Fading into the background, long-forgotten…dulled by the perpetual disappointment of unfulfilled expectancy.
Like Job, do they cry out, “Where then is my hope? As for my hope, who can see it?” (17:15).
How long can one keep hoping when there’s no apparent reason to do so?
Where is the United States? Where are the nations of the world? Where are their own countrymen? Where are the armies of fathers, brothers, neighbors, friends, who might at least attempt to free them?
Where is God? The God of all hope? (Romans 15:13)
O ye of little faith…
Though all may forget, He has not forgotten.
It’s times like these when I remind myself that for every instance in which I see God working, there are multitudes more of which I’m completely unaware.
Like in the lives of those girls.
I know for sure that He loves each one of them in a particular way…that He wants to have a relationship with them. And though it’s not visible to my eyes how He’s working this out for them, the truth is nonetheless that He came to seek and to save the lost. (Luke 19:10)
So for those reasons and a host of others that all point to His faithfulness and sovereignty and supreme goodness, I can state definitively that I trust Him.
I don’t know how He’s working.
But I can’t doubt that He is working.
Because that’s the kind of God He is. (John 5:17)
He was so gracious to bring this article to my attention last week; an article full of hope. Because for every blatant and bold way we see Him working, there are thousands more that are soft and still.
Yes, friends, rejoice and praise Him for the blatant and bold.
Then hope and trust Him for the soft and still.
Oh Jennifer, what a beautiful reminder that our God is always at work. Just as in the book of Esther where His name is never mentioned, yet His presence is palpable, He is at work in the lives of those Nigerian girls, and in our lives. After the kind of week we have had, I am so grateful for the reminder that He is always at work. Bless you, friend.
His behind-the-scenes work is perhaps the most precious to me. Thank you for your kinship, dear Leah.