Several weeks ago, I read a social media post by one of my friends which could be summed up as, “Screw you, God. I’m done with you.” Now, the post was a little bit longer and more nuanced than that, but it essentially cursed God for everything that is going wrong in this man’s life today. As I read his post, I could feel his pain. I could even empathize somewhat with what he was feeling. All of us, at some time in our lives, have been through low points where we wonder, “Why God? Why is this happening to me?” Most of us, though, have not gone to the point where we turn away from God.

What caused my friend to reach this point in his life is irrelevant to this post…What matters is that he 1) acknowledged God’s existence and previous role in his life as his guide and provider, and 2) is now turning away from God in this capacity. The question that immediately popped into my mind after I read his post is, “To whom will you turn now?”

“…Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” – John 6:68

Some people have never known God. They have rejected him out of ignorance, rather than out of a deliberate act of refusal. These people may still know God and accept him in the future, if the right opportunity presents itself. But it’s a different matter when you know God, follow him and accept him in your life, and then turn away. Who will you depend on then? To put your faith in God at some point in your life means that you have acknowledged that there is a power higher than yourself in the universe. To then turn away from God means that you either no longer believe that a higher power exists and that we are just the result of random chaos born of an uncaring dead universe, or that you still acknowledge God’s existence but choose not to rely on him anymore. It is the latter of these two that I believe my friend was expressing, otherwise he wouldn’t have written his post addressed specifically to God.

There are only two choices available to you if you have once relied on God but then turn away from him: 1) you can rely on yourself instead of him, or 2) you can rely on someone else instead of him. But who else has the words of eternal life? Whom else can you turn to with equal power to bless and curse, to save or destroy? Even if God has determined it to be your fate to suffer deliberately, what other choice do you have? You could turn elsewhere, but there is no other power in the universe that can match God. If you believe there is, then you have believed Satan’s first and most powerful lie: that you don’t need God. In times of suffering I try to remember these things: we live in a fallen world, my God has not forsaken me, and eternity is unimaginably longer than my time on this Earth. Even if God takes away everything that I treasure here in the world, what does that compare to the gift of eternal life in his kingdom that he gave freely to me, a wretched sinner?