Since meeting the lady, who had left her Christian faith, on the flight a couple of weeks ago, I can’t escape a couple of questions.
One of which is: Why isn't God more obvious? And since I have been spending
mental energy on the answer I have found that the question is often asked in
many ways and in many contexts. When prayers go unanswered, why is God silent?
When suffering or tragedy strikes, why would God allow this to happen? When
struggling over the countless millions who do not know about God revealed in
Jesus Christ, why wouldn't God want more people to know this great, good news?
When all the "evidence" seems to counter the biblical narrative, why
doesn’t God just give a sign? When God was revealed through many wondrous signs
and miracles throughout the Bible, why doesn't God act that way today? All of
these examples get at the same issue—what I am calling the seeming "hiddenness"
of God.
I read the other morning in a small booklet by Dr. Paul K. Moser entitled Why Isn't God More Obvious, where atheist Bertrand Russell was once asked what he would say if after death he met God. Russell replied: "God, you us gave insufficient evidence." While many who have found God quite evident would balk at Russell's impudence, a similar struggle ensued between the psalmist and his hidden God. "Why do you stand afar off, O Lord? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?" Psalms 10:1. Indeed, the psalmist accuses God of being "asleep" in these plaintive cries: "Arouse, yourself, why do you sleep, O Lord? Awake, and do not reject us forever. Why do you hide your face, and forget our affliction and our oppression?" Psalm 44:23-24.
I read the other morning in a small booklet by Dr. Paul K. Moser entitled Why Isn't God More Obvious, where atheist Bertrand Russell was once asked what he would say if after death he met God. Russell replied: "God, you us gave insufficient evidence." While many who have found God quite evident would balk at Russell's impudence, a similar struggle ensued between the psalmist and his hidden God. "Why do you stand afar off, O Lord? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?" Psalms 10:1. Indeed, the psalmist accuses God of being "asleep" in these plaintive cries: "Arouse, yourself, why do you sleep, O Lord? Awake, and do not reject us forever. Why do you hide your face, and forget our affliction and our oppression?" Psalm 44:23-24.
Hands down, my belief in a God who can be easily found, and who has acted in time and space makes the hiddenness of God all the more moving and complicated. Theologians and apologists have offered many explanations for God's hiddenness: because God seeks to grow one’s faith, because sins and disobedience hide one from God and keep one from seeing God properly, or because God loves a person and knows how much and how often one needs to "find" God. If I were honest, perhaps I am just as likely to hide myself from God because of my own sense of guilt and shame, just as the narrative in Genesis tells of Adam and Eve hid from God in the Garden. But then, I have to ask question: what about those who relentlessly seek after God and who are “blameless” with regards to willful hiding? Those like Job, who’s cry rises up within me wondering why God stays hidden away in unanswered prayers and difficult and difficult circumstances. Why do "you hide your face, and consider me the enemy?" Job 13:24.
I can’t visualize why the hiddenness of God isn’t problematic for any theists or atheists. I think to often that I along with other Christians take for granted that we have a scripture which provides a record of God's revelation. We have the benefit of a book full of God's speech. God speaks in the wonder and mystery of creation; God speaks through the history of the nation of
Regardless, all may wonder whether the only place to hear
God speaking is in the past. Is God
still speaking today? Has God not given any contemporary witness for God's
presence and activity in the world today?
In my making a list of where God can be found – in last place I listed the church. For when the church is at its best, the church tells fresh the story of God's good news across the ages. But the church can become the living embodiment of God's presence; encountered in the love and care demonstrated by the community for each other, for the sake of the world. At its best, the church can be such a community, and can be a symbol of God's presence among it’s constituents as "God-found," and not "God-hidden." The church can be the arms of God around us when we are hurting, or the voice of God speaking when we feel we haven’t heard from God in years. Such a community can be like the faithful friends who carried their paralyzed friend to hear Jesus. His faith didn't heal him, but the narrative in Mark 2:1-12 says the faith of his friends did! The church can be God’s voice, God’s hands and feet as they extend out into the broken places of the world to bring healing, help, and comfort. This was confirmed in my thinking a month or so ago, as Ann Graham Lott spoke in Ashville at “Awake,Western North Carolina .” Through worship and liturgy, prayer and
communion, service and sacrifice the church is to reveal the God who spoke and
is still speaking.
In my making a list of where God can be found – in last place I listed the church. For when the church is at its best, the church tells fresh the story of God's good news across the ages. But the church can become the living embodiment of God's presence; encountered in the love and care demonstrated by the community for each other, for the sake of the world. At its best, the church can be such a community, and can be a symbol of God's presence among it’s constituents as "God-found," and not "God-hidden." The church can be the arms of God around us when we are hurting, or the voice of God speaking when we feel we haven’t heard from God in years. Such a community can be like the faithful friends who carried their paralyzed friend to hear Jesus. His faith didn't heal him, but the narrative in Mark 2:1-12 says the faith of his friends did! The church can be God’s voice, God’s hands and feet as they extend out into the broken places of the world to bring healing, help, and comfort. This was confirmed in my thinking a month or so ago, as Ann Graham Lott spoke in Ashville at “Awake,
God is not often revealed in the roar of the hurricane or
the loud-clap of thunder, but in a "still, small voice"—a voice that
is often barely audible except to the most patient and still. But when the Church,
broken and human as it is, seeks through the power of the Spirit of Christ to
accomplish "greater things than these," I believe it will see God and hear God,
and find God beautifully obvious.
Father, I approach You this morning having most of my questions about You, yet fully answered. Thus far in my sixty two years of faith in You, my longing to see You, in most of my darker hours longing to find you, I haven’t yet seen or found You in the dramatic, in exuberance, or stupendous demonstrations. Instead, more than not, I’ve found You in the quietness of the early morning devotion, at the solemnity of the invitation from the pulpit, at the table of the Lord’s Supper, or in the love of Bettyann, my daughters and grandchildren, or the faithful friends who encircle around, or fellow seekers and colleagues who long to find You also. Amen
Father, I approach You this morning having most of my questions about You, yet fully answered. Thus far in my sixty two years of faith in You, my longing to see You, in most of my darker hours longing to find you, I haven’t yet seen or found You in the dramatic, in exuberance, or stupendous demonstrations. Instead, more than not, I’ve found You in the quietness of the early morning devotion, at the solemnity of the invitation from the pulpit, at the table of the Lord’s Supper, or in the love of Bettyann, my daughters and grandchildren, or the faithful friends who encircle around, or fellow seekers and colleagues who long to find You also. Amen
