Is God unfair, silent and hidden?
I am reading the book, “Disappointment With God”, by Philip Yancey, which openly discusses the journey of disappointment that some Christians experience with God. This subject can be taboo, because it can feel disrespectful to feel disappointment with God, and yet I believe it is a universal experience of Christians, whether they want to admit it or not. The third chapter of the book asks three questions- Is God unfair, silent, and hidden? This short post aims at redirecting those questions with truth. I write this from the perspective of having felt my own share of disappointment with God, and yet these are the conclusions I have arrived at after years of seeking understanding in God’s actions (or inaction). I would love to engage with readers on this subject! How have you felt disappointment with God in your spiritual walk?
I think the first question from chapter three that should be addressed is, “Is God unfair?” I believe this question needs to be answered from a different perspective. Rather than blaming God, we need to figure out who really failed. What decisions did another human being make that disappointed us? Was it a friend or relative that broke our trust? Was it a pastor who failed in some way? Here’s the thing- if we truly have free will (which I believe we do), then we can’t possibly hold God responsible for the decisions of others. In cases like illness, where there is not a culprit, it is perhaps easier for people to blame God for not intervening, but even still, is it logical to place blame at all?
If we live in a world cursed with sin, and the punishment for sin in general is death, is it not reasonable to accept that death is an unfortunate part of this life on earth? Is it acceptable to know, but also hate, that we are not yet in heaven, and therefore, not safe from weeping, sickness, and death? I hate this fact as much as anyone, and yet, it remains the truth. We can listen to as many prosperity gospel sermons as we want, but it doesn’t change the fact that we live in a fallen world that is prone to sin far more often than it is to the righteous ways of living taught in the Christian Bible. So is God unfair? I suppose that question would need to be taken all the way back to the book of Genesis, when God “allowed” Eve to be tempted. Was it fair for God to give us the option of choosing Him? I say yes, because otherwise we truly would serve a cruel and twisted puppet master.
With all of that in mind, we can move on to the second question: “Is God silent?” We read in the Bible that God’s voice is like the thunder, that His Spirit speaks in whispers and wordless groans, and that very few of mankind have actually spoken to Him. Could it be pride that causes us to believe we are worthy of standing in His presence, even knowing that Christ took our sin and bridged the gap so that we could do so anyway? If what is written in James 4:6 is true, then is it possible that our hubris causes us to become God’s enemy, thereby separating us from His voice? Maybe he isn’t silent; maybe we are too proud. I went through a season about 2 years ago in which I couldn’t hear from God. A friend asked me the question, “What does a teacher do during a test?” The answer was, “they are quiet”. Maybe in our trials God quietly waits to see what we will do with the autonomy granted to us through free will. Perhaps in our failures, God silently weeps at our absence, while keeping our name engraved upon His precious hands.
This leads us to question three- “Is God hidden?” Isaiah 45 hints at the hiddenness of God, as does the story of Job. If we truly believe that God exists in a realm in which we cannot see, that none have seen His face, and that few have heard His voice, then we can at least acknowledge, if not accept, that God is intentionally hidden from us in some ways. People have desperately sought a physical manifestation of God over the years, and yet, when faced with Christ in the flesh, mankind refused to believe He was who He said He was. If we are truly created in God’s image, with a mind that is capable of mirroring the mind of Christ, how do you think God feels when he is rejected by humanity? If we serve a relational God, we should care about His feelings. Human emotion does not compare to our God, and yet we know we serve a God that feels big things. We have hidden God’s authentic, triune image in ourselves, and therefore have muted the living God. This is not an issue of faith; this is an issue of mistaken identity, misapplied blame, and twisted interpretation of church leaders that conceal God rather than reveal Him. We exist in a fine balance of man-driven decisions and God ordained plans with an infinite amount of possibility and option. Our faith is our responsibility, and if we are opting to be spoon fed a watered down gospel that depends on “proof”, or God doing things to show Himself, we miss out on the divine mystery of forging a relationship with a loving Father who has sacrificed everything in the heavens to ensure our eternity.
Works Cited
Yancey, Philip. Disappointment with God: Three Questions No One Asks Aloud. Zondervan, 1988.
