Who Is

 "...when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.”

I was covered in soot, my hands digging through ash to find what might remain of our family’s lifetime of memories. There wasn’t much to find. Though the old cassette tapes survived, ironically, there wasn’t much to be found that had any value.

The fire took everything, everything of material value, that was precious to my childhood and early adult years. All my baby photos, high school yearbooks, my grandmother’s quilts, my mom’s wedding dress, memories of my sister we were saving for her girls. I was sifting through the remains of… well, I wasn’t even sure what the remains were. Once everything melts together, bedframes and baby dolls, photo albums and war medals all look the same… ashes to ashes, dust to dust. That is all that is left. But as I was sifting through ashes, I was crying out to God. “Where were you, Lord?” .... WHY?

I admit, the last few months I’ve had lots of questions, and even been upset with God. I’m thankful HE can handle my upset feelings, but I can’t always. I was struggling to understand.

The same weekend we were tasked with going through the ashes of our life, families in Texas faced a great flood that claimed so many loved ones… so many of their children. Moms and dads hugged their babies goodbye for a week at camp, never to see them again. My own kids were at sleep-away camp and the realization that I could never see them again overwhelmed my emotions with empathy for those mourning so much loss.

"WHY? Where were you, God?" I asked again. I cried out in my prayers and those cries came easily to my face in the form of tears.

I was inspired by a brief message I saw online that used the phrase, “WHO God is.” This resonated with my Spirit. I realized that I often ask the wrong questions, when, as believers in Jesus, we have solid answers.

I was a journalist for many different seasons in my career. So, this line of questioning made sense to me. As young collegiates aspiring to be great journalists, we were taught early on to ask the basic questions – who, what, when, where, why and how. But in my real career, there were many news stories that I covered where we weren’t given answers to many of those questions, and we had to write the story based on what we did know. An official report would often leave out important details, sometimes identities or locations, but we had to work with what we were given.

So, this brief message vibrated the chords of my heart, and I began to ponder on it. When I don’t know the why, or the where (where were you, God?), I have to focus on what I DO know. And I know the Who.

Who God is is holy. God is loving. God is faithful. God always keeps his promises.

God is compassionate.

“You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book?” Psalm 56:8 (ESV). The Who sees, and holds, my tears. 

I know Who God is. I’ve met Him and walked with Him and lived with Him. He has always been faithful and true. I choose to trust Him.

And I trust Him in places like this: “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.” Isaiah 43:2 (ESV). The Who is with me. That’s where He is.

He was with my parents in their fire, with me in my heart, and with those caught up in the flood. Even if my parents had perished in the flames, He would have held them in that moment and into eternity.

I know the Who. And I know the where. Even when I don’t know the why.

There’s another “who” in this story, though, and that is Satan.

Even the earth groans with the weight of sin. The groanings burst forth, spilling up from the deep under the heaviness of brokenness. This is not how God designed it to be. The earth is meant to honor and glorify God, but instead the “ruler of this world” (Jhn. 12:31) has no regard, no respect, for its Creator. There is a “why.”

And yet, despite the whys and the whats and the little “w” whos that choose sin and shame over forgiveness and grace, God does not dismiss us. He goes through the waters with us; he stands in the fire beside us; he keeps track of our tears.

The anguish the world feels is His anguish too. It doesn’t have to be His suffering to endure. He is perfect and good, and yet He chose our suffering anyway. The suffering we endure, He took on Himself on the cross. “Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering,” Isaiah 53:4a.

But I don’t need answers to all of my questions when I have a “Who” like God, a God who has the power to defeat death (Is. 25:8), grant eternal life (2 Tim. 1:10), fight our battles for us (Deut. 3:22) and win in the end (Jhn. 16:33). A God who saves (Eph. 2:8-9), who redeems (Col. 1:13-14), who creates (Gen. 1:1) and recreates (Col. 3:10). A God who is slow to anger and abounding in compassion and lovingkindness (Num. 14:18, Ps. 103:8). A God who writes stories and rewrites them when we think our ending would be better (1 Jhn. 1:9). A God who loves the orphan and the widow (Jas. 1:27), the fatherless (Ps. 146:9), the impoverished in body and spirit (Matt. 5:3). A God who stretches His long right hand from heaven to hold us (Ps. 63:8). A God who left His throne above to dwell among us, Immanuel (Matt. 1:22-23).

That is Who I serve. I really don’t need to know anything else. Today, I either choose to trust Him or to reject Him. I know what is true or I lean into what is uncertain.

I will not ever know what God knows. I’m glad I won’t, because if I did, He would be my equal. God is God and I am grateful that He is. I trust He knows the answers to all the questions, even when I do not.

I know the Who, even when I don’t know the answers to anything else.