There are times in our lives when we have a greater awareness of God's absence than we do of God's presence. Indeed, this is the experience which confronts Job in our text. In the midst of his suffering he has tried to lay his case before God. He goes forward and backward, to the left and to the right, seeking in every place to find God. To be sure, Job wants to find God because Job knows that he is an innocent sufferer, that he is an upright person. And since God is just, Job is confident that he would gain his acquittal, if only he could gain a hearing before God. But to Job's dismay, God seems to have moved and left no forwarding address. Therefore Job is moved to cry out, "Oh, that I knew where I might find him, that I might come even to his dwelling!" (Job 23:3).

There are many of us…