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by Chuck Davis
“Awake, O Lord! Why do you sleep? Rouse yourself! Do not reject us forever. Why do you hide your face and forget our misery and oppression?” (Psalm 44:23-24)
This is the second of three columns dealing with doubts about one’s faith in God. This column deals with God’s Sovereignty – the superintending of His creation – and more specifically addresses the thorny question of God’s seeming silence in the face of evil triumphant in the world. In an Oracle column several months ago, our pastor listed five reasons why bad things happen to good people. The present column approaches the subject from another vantage point: What might it be like if God acted differently?
There is more than just a bit of presumption in attempting to answer these questions comprehensively. God’s ways are not, after all, our ways. “His ways are unsearchable and His paths beyond tracing out.” (Romans 11:33). Thus, this is a question to be pondered, not an issue to be comprehensively understood in our lifetime. Sometimes God writes over our days: “Will explain later.” If we stipulate that God is omnipotent, we are faced with what can perhaps be described as disappointment with God. Three questions, then, seem to be at the heart of our concerns: 1) Is God fair? 2) Is God silent? and 3) Is God hidden?
Scripture informs us of a time when God explicitly proposed to deal with His chosen people on the basis of fairness. In the desert wilderness God resolved to grant prosperous cities, absence of sterility in both people and animals, bountiful crops, dependable weather, military victories, and total immunity to disease – provided that His people were obedient. On the basis of fairness, then, disobedience would bring violence and crime, infertility, famine, locust plagues, drought, military defeat, and disease. The resulting record in the books of Joshua and Judges is not impressive. Much of the rest of the Old Testament documents the dreary outcome - so much for preferring that God be “fair.”
The Old Testament also sheds much light on whether God being anything but silent and hidden worked to His people’s advantage. In the wilderness experience, His communication was unambiguous. When the cloud moves over the tabernacle, move the tent; otherwise, stay put. “Don’t go up and fight the Amorites.” (They did and were resoundingly defeated). In over 600 sacramental and moral laws, God’s guidance was not the least bit fuzzy. How did things work out? Not very well. His chosen people flunked at every level of faith and obedience – so much so that God started over with a new generation after 40 years.
We believe we yearn for clearly visible evidence of God’s presence, but in an era when such was plain to all, the results were not encouraging. Moses’ face glowed brightly after talking to God – there were no atheists then. Ten plagues had been witnessed, with miraculous escape from the tenth, followed by a parted sea. The people’s response was to dance around a golden calf idol when Moses returned from the mountain.
The point to be drawn from the record of Scripture is that when God was absolutely “fair,” demonstrably not silent, and manifestly visible – one might even say “intrusive” - the results were anything but good. His chosen people were disobedient, wayward, and often unbelieving. Could it be that it is not to our advantage in this earthly life to “coexist” with God in such an intrusive and visible way? The Biblical account demonstrates that on the whole, dramatic, eye-popping events foster neither obedience nor abiding faith.
What, then, must we make of the Scriptural record? Difficult and perplexing circumstances must be met with faith. There is a childlike faith that at times feeds orphans or moves a mountain. But when our prayers go seemingly unanswered, we must cling to “fidelity” faith – hang on at all costs. For childlike faith we have Psalm 23; for “fidelity” faith we have the Psalm immediately before it. As Christians, we will one day experience the consummate reality that is the ultimate promise of Easter Sunday. On this earth, in this life, however, we live out our days on Easter Saturday. So when doubts and disappointments arise about God’s superintending of His creation, we must choose to be disappointed with God; the alternative is to be disappointed without Him -- and that is a burden God promises we do not have to bear.
*For further reading on this subject, see Philip Yancey’s Disappointment With God, whose thoughts were borrowed liberally in this column.
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