So many people and groups claim God exists, but in our day-to-day human experience, God often seems hidden. Why is this?
Shouldn’t we expect God’s personal presence to be overt, obvious, and regular? Especially if Christianity claims that He is interested in us personally?
If God invented life, He knows the meaning of it.. But that doesn’t mean it’s always clear to us..
In relation to feeling God’s absence, throughout history, it has been normal for humanity to struggle and ask “Why?” or “Where are you?” I suspect, if we were honest, each of us have questioned God in this way at some point. Even the writers of the Bible (who had many meaningful experiences of God punctuating their lives), also had these painful feelings of His absence at times:
Psalm 10:1 Why do You stand far away, LORD? Why do You hide Yourself in times of trouble?
Psalm 88:14 LORD, why do You reject my soul? Why do You hide Your face from me?
Psalm 13:1 How long, LORD? Will You forget me forever? How long will You hide Your face from me?
When God doesn’t answer us when we call to Him in our trouble or after a long time, it feels like rejection, or that God just isn’t there at all, but far from being a sign of God’s absence or negligence, I would like to try and show that it’s actually just a natural product of two things: God’s different-ness in comparison to us, as well as part of a strategic purpose he has in His plan of salvation for us. We should definitely keep seeking Him, in circumstances of doubt, because His answer might be just around the corner, but it’s important to add knowledge to our efforts, so I hope the thoughts I have to share encourage you in your pursuit of Him.
1. God seems distant because He is so different from us.
We are limited, finite beings – God is an infinite being, and is therefore very different from us in “size” and in degree (though we were also made with some similarities to Him, but that’s another topic). Think of holding up an ant to your face to try and reveal yourself to it – what would the ant do? Likely, just continue on doing its work searching for the next objective to support the colony. Humans are wholly “other” to an ant – effectively, we’re “infinitely” above ants, and even “unknowable” to them.. Unless, perhaps, we had the ability to become an ant, and explain ourselves to them in ant-speak..
God is also of a different “essence” than us. We are physical and God is “spirit” (John 4:24). God created humans as part of the physical world (but with a spiritual component). This is unlike God and His angels, who are fully “spirit”. Consider the difference between the physical and the digital. A digital computer game character (who exists fundamentally as code), could never “see” his physical programmer because digital characters only “see” things of their own “essence”, that is, other digital information. Of course the programmer could, if he so chose, program an avatar of himself into the game, as a digital representation of himself or as a portal for him to communicate through..
This gap between lesser and infinite is still infinite (in both the degree and essence of God’s difference from us). Infinite gaps cannot be overcome unless the infinite party/side chooses to do something to help. 1 Timothy 6:16 says ” ..[God] who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. To him be honor and might forever. Amen.” But does that mean, we are forever unable to know God? Or has He actually done something to enable us to know Him? Christianity claims that the man Jesus Christ was exactly this effort by God to reveal Himself on earth.
Consider what the following passages have to say about the Jesus Christ:
Philippians 2:6-8 “For he [Christ], who had always been God by nature, did not cling to his prerogatives as God’s equal, but stripped himself of all privilege by consenting to be a slave by nature and being born as mortal man. And, having become man, he humbled himself by living a life of utter obedience, even to the extent of dying, and the death he died was the death of a common criminal.”[Phillips]
Hebrews 1:3 “The Son [Christ] is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact expression of His nature, sustaining all things by His powerful word. After making purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.”[HCSB]
John 12:49 “For I [Christ] did not speak on my own, but the Father who sent me commanded me to say all that I have spoken.“[NIV]
So Jesus claims to be the “programmer” that came down into the “program” – but what did Jesus reveal to us concerning God and His plan? To know that you should of course read Jesus’ own words. (Start with the 21-chapter Gospel of John).
What else does Jesus and the scripture Jesus upheld, tell us about why God is hidden at times?
2. God’s hiddenness serves a purpose for our salvation.
God created humanity in order to have a group of beings to share life with Him in His goodness and love, but God intended this potential only for those who actually love Him – and not everyone does. How might God separate out those who love Him from those who might only say they love Him? By creating a world for us to live in, that involves choice, God gives us a chance to see the nature of the world – one of good to be embraced and evil to be rejected – and then make our decision as to how we will live. If God was hovering over us, filling the sky at all times with His direct presence, we would all be very careful to choose what pleases Him.. but it wouldn’t be out of love for Him, rather it would be cowering servitude. How else, as someone who stands to offer ultimate blessing, can you see who really cares for you, other than to give them a chance to act without them seeing you watch them? This is what the Bible reveals about God – He chooses to be hidden from view for a time to reveal who truly loves Him. In Matthew 25:35, when describing, on the day of judgment, His positive assessment of the people who love Him, Jesus says “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in..” How we live in regards to others, especially those in need, is a most serious test, of God’s design – and He can easily sort out justice after life is over.
God has certainly woven moral law into creation, but by making us creatures with free will, it means we can choose to do what we like and go against His moral standard. But what word best describes it if God’s laws are sacred to Him and then we go against them? “Rebellion”. Even one sin is an act of rebellion against God, and sadly, each one of us has rebelled in many ways, meaning that, before salvation, we are out of a safe place with God (that is, not at peace with Him) and in an unsafe place (in opposition to Him). Smartly, God still gave us a sense of need/expectation for Him and a sense that we need to do what’s right (conscience). We may feel abandoned by God in this life, but if we have indeed rebelled against Him, a feeling of God stepping back from this dishonour shown to Him, makes more sense then some sort of over-simplified grandfather figure who blindly loves everyone and makes no judgments on anyone’s actions. So if we have indeed rebelled against Him (whether we recognize it as rebellion or not), God uses hiddenness to show us the seriousness of our sin, and the danger of being in a state of opposition to Him. Isaiah 59:2 says” But your wrongdoings have caused a separation between you and your God, And your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear.” This doesn’t mean God won’t listen if we are actually sorry for what we’ve done and intend to change (the Bible is full of promises that God responds in mercy to this attitude), rather this is God saying you can’t have Him while you want to hold on to what is sin. So hiddenness is a meaningful response to our rebellion, because if there is any hope that we might change or take any offers God makes towards our peace, we need to sense that something is wrong. We need to see our rebellion as God sees it, but this is not the end of the story..
God uses His hiddenness as a context to show us His mercy. In speaking to His unfaithful people, Israel, in Hosea 2:14 God says “Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her.” Even though His people rebelled against Him over and over in the Old Testament, God still cared for them and wanted to bring them back into a state of loving, freely chosen following of Him. In the allegory found in the book of Hosea, God uses “wilderness” (a state of lack of basic needs and/or a feeling of abandonment), to accomplish this goal. By being cut off from their sources of fulfillment, and primarily God Himself, this “wilderness” was meant to cause Israel to reevaluate their orientation towards God, and respond by returning to Him – the only true source of peace and contentment in this world.
These aren’t the only reasons that God may have to be hidden, but they are some of them. Do you ever feel like you are in a “wilderness” in life or in your search for God? Have you considered that God may be calling you back to Him, or to Him for the first time, to know His heart, and live as He called each of us to live, so you can have the friendship with Him that He made you for? Know that you can return, come, humbly acknowledging to Him your failure to live up to His standard, and trust in what Jesus has done to save you – God is always eager to embrace anyone who does. There is much to be said about How God has revealed Himself in this world and in history (read more of these blogs and the linked resources if you’re curious), but our painful experience of God’s hiddenness is also a thing to be reconciled. I hope these thoughts help explain why this hiddenness fits right in with the whole message given to us in the Word of God.