Where Does The Love of God Go?

 

This past November 10 marked the 50^th anniversary of the sinking of the freighter, The Edmund Fitzgerald on Lake Superior. Twenty-nine men lost their lives as the ship sank to the bottom of the lake. This event was forever memorialized about a year later as Canadian folk singer Gordon Lightfoot (1938-2023) wrote, recorded and released his hit song, “The Wreck of The Edmund Fitzgerald.” This is one of the most haunting songs I have ever listened to, but one part of the song really stands out to me. He has just sung about the final wreck of the big ship and then there is a musical bridge which is both eerie and terrifying at the same time. The bridge fades out, the music softens and Mr. Lightfoot comes back and sings this line: “Does anyone know where the love of God goes when the waves turn the minutes to hours?”

Gordon Lightfoot was a terrific storyteller and this song was a masterpiece. The question he asks above hits hard. For those raised in church, the easy answer is that God’s love is always there and never leaves. Our God is an awesome God! Yet, the easy answer leaves you unsettled and unsatisfied when life hits you hard and knocks you down. For me those moments when “the waves turned the minutes to hours” were when Angie died. All of us have moments like that, whether it is tragedy or betrayal or something else sinister. Like I am prone to do, I turned to the word of God for answers. Again, what I found was troubling. 1 Kings 19 tells us how the prophet Elijah ran as far as he could from Queen Jezebel (that name just sounds wicked) after she had sent a messenger to Elijah. The messenger relayed that the Queen was sending an army of men after him to slaughter him in the next 24 hours. Elijah had slaughtered the prophets of the god Baal after challenging them to call their god and they failed, as told in 1 Kings 18. It is quite a humorous story. Then we get to verses 11 & 12 in Chapter 19 that say, “The Lord said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by. Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire.” I have always been told that I worship an omnipotent God, that he is everywhere all the time. Yet this tells us that He was not in the powerful wind, that he was not in the earthquake and he was not in the fire. Where was He? And where was He when Jesus cried out on the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46 & Mark 15:34) And no doubt, God was not in the storm that night on Lake Superior. Verse 12 goes on to tell us that the voice of God is a whisper, implying that we need to find ourselves in a quiet moment to truly hear His voice.

I will state here that I do not doubt that God loves me, that He is Almighty and all powerful. But, sometimes I have questions. We all have questions, and that is good. For the time being I leave this question without a good answer. And sometimes not getting a good answer is all I get for now. I keep pursuing the answer, knowing by faith that the answer will be revealed to me.

I will close out with another master storytelling song from Mr. Lightfoot, my personal favorite of his, “Carefree Highway.” It is a story of reminiscing about a love lost. I think of the Carefree Highway in Arizona, a 30-mile stretch of road that is north/northwest of Phoenix. For those not familiar with the highway system in Phoenix, they name their highways. If you are driving on I-10 in Phoenix, you are actually on the Maricopa Freeway (Phoenix is in Maricopa County, Arizona). I have spent a small portion of my life in Arizona, particularly the Phoenix/Scottsdale area and I have many fond memories. Everything from a summer job while I was in college (1988) to a guys’ weekend golf trip to spring break trips with my sons. Obviously, I highly recommend Arizona. The Grand Canyon remains the most amazing place I have ever seen. Still on my bucket list is a trip to Sedona. Back to Mr. Lightfoot’s song. In it, he sings an unforgettable line to me: “Now the thing that I call living is just being satisfied with knowing I got no one left to blame.” So give me a convertible (I’ll settle for an open sunroof), an open stretch of highway basking in the sun, some good tunes turned up loud and not a care in the world. Carefree Highway, let me slip away on you!