DEPARTED GOD

 

Many times, as humans we struggle with questions of whether there is a God, and if there is one; is there “the one true God”; or a simpler decision to jettison all thoughts of the existence of a creator that determines what goes on in the world.

There are instances when a person take for granted the fact that everyone he/she talks to, is a believer in God. Personally when I speak of God, I refer to the God who inspired the writing of the scriptures, the God from the Christian world view.

I’m a believer for some reasons. The first is experiencing God through faith in Jesus Christ. I have witnessed his salvation and transforming power, and so have many other Christians.

Does this mean that God lives from my experience alone?

Have I created an imaginary all-powerful super-hero as my coping mechanism?

I scream in frustration at the senseless killings, natural and “man-made” disasters around me, and I wonder if I have believed in a lie. My faith struggles, and I want a God that can come and make everything right and beautiful. No hunger, disease or death.

If there is an originator,  the designer of life, the Saviour of the whole world, why does this Being not step up to the challenge of quenching my doubt and proving once and for all that, He is the “I AM”.

Why does God not silence His critics?

Why does He allow faith the space to doubt at all? Or is He as Friedrich Nietzsche alleged dead?

Is my “experience” or “relationship with God enough to sustain me when I see the injustice and poverty in society?

In many ways my discomfort with the failings in society makes me want to believe strongly that God is alive and kicking. This just can’t be it. I want to live in a world of justice and happiness, I don’t know about you.

Then, if I resolve that God is alive, where then is God? Is He on vacation? Has He abandoned His Creations to their devices?The same set of facts I believe today, may make me doubt tomorrow. Does this make me a skeptic and not a true believer?

The lyrics of a song I heard as a teenager seems apt right now:

Roll back the curtain of memory now and then,

Show me where you brought me from, 

And where I could have been, 

Remember I’m human

And humans forget

So remind me, remind me dear Lord.

Not a skeptic. Only a forgetful believer.

When God seems absent; I forget that, I’m the subject of a returning King who has made himself into the hungry, thirsty, naked, homeless, and imprisoned.

I forget that how I treat the least around me is how I treat Him.

Isn’t it funny that I claim to love an unseen God, when I struggle to love humans I see.