Martin Luther, a seminal figure in the Protestant Reformation (the other was John Calvin) had a tongue-in-cheek, not-very-endearing nickname for God: Deus Absconditus – The God who goes missing! Feels a lot like that lately, doesn’t it? In times like these, God’s seeming absences are unsettling and are a tad too much to bear.A recurring theme in our house this season has been JOY. We talk about Joy through the day, and at the dinner table. We pray that God would give us undiluted Joy for the long anxiety-prone hours of our days, and peaceful nights of rest. With plague and death hovering over us, even the most optimistic among us is easily sucked into the waves of sorrow blowing in our direction at every turn. As if the business of life is not hard enough.Writing to the church at Philippi from his dingy prison cell in Rome before his execution by the mad emperor, Nero, the aging apostle Paul’s message is profound: Joy is not a function of everything going right, every relationship being perfect. No. Not even being in good health. Joy constitutes a quiet trust and confidence when the storms of life are raging.“Rejoice. And again I say, Rejoice!” The exuberance in Paul’s proclamation is almost palpable. And why, you ask? Because, he would say, your tomorrow very well might be today. Yes, even in the middle of a turbulent storm. Yes, even in the middle of a pandemic.Paul, of all people, would know what he was talking about. His life (using earth lenses) was anything but joyful. And he knew something else about the seeming absences of God: They elevate us to a place of prayer and faith in ways comfort could never possibly do.