How do we know if God is really with us?

That's the question of a lifetime. How do we know that God is really with us?

Let's start by answering a similar question that was asked during the same service, which was, "God like go Walls with us?" For those of you not living on Oahu and not semi-fluent in Pidgin, allow me to translate: "Do you think God, in the midst of His cosmic obligations, might be willing to join us for a lively session of surfing at the spot known as 'Walls?'"

The answer to that question is that God is already there! David writes in Psalm 139:7-8, "Where can I go from Your Spirit? Where can I flee from Your presence? If I go up to the heavens, You are there; if I make my bed in the depths, You are there." There is no place that God isn't. God is with you when you ask if He'd like to join you at Walls, and He is there at Walls with your friends who are waiting for you.

So let's bring it back to the original question: "How do we know if God is really with us?" David, the guy who wrote that God is everywhere, also wrote, "Lord, why are you so far away? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?" What's the deal? Is he even talking about the same God?

Yes, he is talking about the same God, and he's being very honest with his feelings towards God. In Psalm 10 (and a bunch of other psalms) David is expressing frustration over what seems like God's absence in times of trouble. However, David always comes back to trusting that God will make himself known and that He knows what He is doing.

Sometimes the reason it seems that God is absent is because there is too much noise in our lives. Try this. In the early morning when no one is up or late at night before you go to bed, sit for a moment in the silence. Don't turn any music on, remove any distractions, and open your Bible to Psalm 46:10, which says, "Be still, and know that I am God." Read the passage a few times to get it into your head, and then close your eyes and begin to "pray" it to God.

Listen for God in the silence. If your mind starts to wander, come back to the verse and pray it again. You might find that it's really hard to keep your mind from wandering, but it's okay. Just try this for a few minutes the first time, and if you find that it helps you to be more aware of God's presence try it for longer the next time.

By the way, it's perfectly alright, and spiritually honest, to express to God when it doesn't seem that He is really with you. God is big enough to handle it. Just remember that Jesus has promised that, "you can be sure that I am always with you, to the very end" (Matt. 28:20b).


All Scripture quotations taken from the New International Reader's Version.

Who created God?

Great question!

From the Judeo-Christian perspective, the answer is that God was not created; He is eternal. The Bible supports this in many places, but we will just look at two.

Genesis begins with the phrase "In the beginning, God." Before the beginning of time, God was. In fact, God's personal name, which he reveals to Moses in Exodus 3:14 and is frequently translated "I AM" reveals, among other things, His eternality. God is essentially saying that," I am always existing."

Famous author C.S. Lewis offers an interesting way of looking at the eternal nature of God. He says that if you take a piece of paper and draw a line on it to represent time, God is the paper. Kinda crazy, right? Let's unpack this a bit.

What the idea of God's eternal existence means is that God always exists. Because God is the paper in Lewis' model, He experiences all of time at the same time. God is present with you and me here in the 21st century, and at the same time for Him, He is present with Moses in the burning bush. God always is.

There are some profound implications of that last statement. Instead of laying them out, I offer that you find a quiet space and ask God what it means for Him to always be. He is always present; we just need to seek and listen.

"You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart." Jeremiah 29:13 NIV

What was Mary and Joseph's last name?

Here's a fun question with an unusually complex answer. In biblical times, the last name of Jewish men was the name of their fathers. My dad's name is David, so if I were living in the time of Jesus my name would be Kainoa ben David. "Ben" means "son of" in Hebrew, and sometimes you see the Aramaic equivalent "bar" in the Bible as well ("Simon Bar-Jonah," Matthew 16:17).

What makes things complicated is trying to figure out who Joseph's father was. In Matthew 1:16 it says that Joseph's father was Jacob, yet in Luke 3:23 it says that Joseph's father was Heli. What's the deal?

There are several ways in which people have approached this, but I will offer only one. It was not uncommon for the Jewish writers of the Old Testament to leave out names in genealogies. In fact, what our English Bibles usually translate as "begat" or "son/father of" really means male descendent/ancestor of. Since my grandpa's name is Edward, if a biblical writer was writing my genealogy they would be correct if they wrote, "Edward was the father of Kainoa" or "Kainoa the son of Edward" because the importance is not on providing a detailed pedigree but on drawing a line between certain related individuals.

This is why Matthew's geneaology has fewer names then Luke, even if you only count the names from Abraham. Matthew appears to have selected the names that he did as a poetic device (Matthew 1:17) whereas Luke the physician might be more interested in Jesus' actual lineage.

To answer the question, Joseph was probably called either "Joseph ben Jacob" or "Joseph ben Heli."