Bertrand Russell, the atheist intellectual, was on his deathbed. A friend said to him, “You’ve been the world’s most famous atheist most of your life, and now you’re about to die. What if you were wrong? What would you say to God if you met him?“ Russell replied: “I think I should say to him: Sir, it appears that my atheistic hypothesis was erroneous. Would you mind answering me one wee little question? Why didn’t you give us more evidence?“
Maybe you’ve wondered the same thing. “God, if you really exist, why don’t you give more evidence?“ Why doesn’t God make his presence more obvious? Why doesn’t he make it so obvious that that nobody can possibly doubt it?
Why doesn’t God arrange the stars in such a way that they spell out “I EXIST“ as a permanent message in the sky? Okay, maybe that’s not the best example. Would we really want God to mess up his beautiful sky with a billboard? Outer space is about the only place left that’s not cluttered with commercials. If God wants his stars to put on a magnificent show with no admission fee and no pushy “message from our sponsor,“ let’s not complain.
But there must be some other way that God could prove to everyone that he’s for real. How about taking a “Demonstration of the Week“ approach? God could do one miracle each week and have it broadcast live around the world. One week the Lord could tell network news people to go to a certain funeral and have their cameras ready. Then, as the cameras rolled, the dead person could open his eyes and sit up and crawl out of his coffin and walk away, alive and healthy.
The following week, God could tell reporters to be in a certain hospital room, and there the TV cameras would show the world a dying AIDS patient becoming instantly healthy. Another week, the demonstration might be a nature miracle: God could make a redwood tree grow from a seedling to a 200—foot giant in two minutes while the cameras rolled. The week after that, God could offer proof not only that he’s real but that he’s serious about morality. He could take someone from Hollywood who produced a dirty movie and turn him into a muddy pig that talked with an oinking accent. This filthy swine could become human again only if he promised never again to wallow in moral filth.
Just imagine if God did things like that on a regular basis, if he performed a miracle a week for all to see. But God doesn’t. Why not? Why does God seem to hide himself so much of the time?
Mixed Signals
For many of us, the hiddenness of God is frustrating. The problem isn’t that we have no reason at all to believe in God. If God gave us no reason at all, the world might seem empty and our lives might seem pointless, but at least we’d feel sure that there’s no God, and we could just ignore questions about faith and morality and get on with our lives as we saw fit.
But it’s not quite that simple, is it? There are so many hints of divine activity in nature and in our own lives, and so much power in the Bible’s record of God’s mighty acts and in the mysterious magnetism of Jesus Christ, that we have a hard time dismissing God entirely and feeling absolutely sure that he doesn’t exist. Why else do so many unbelievers still catch themselves praying from time to time? Why else would some of the world’s most famous atheists confess that there are times when they think that God may be real, after all?
Our problem, then, isn’t that we see no sign of God at all, but that we see only enough to make us suspect he’s real; we don’t see enough to make us absolutely sure. We seem to be getting mixed signals. Some things are so marvelous that it seems there has to be a God, but other things are so horrible that it seems there can’t be a God. There are times when God is so hidden and silent, and the world around us is so dark and confusing, that even if you’re a committed Christian, you can’t help wondering whether everything you believe about God is a lie.
These mixed signals can make us feel confused and anxious. If we saw no hint of God anywhere, we could forget about God without troubling ourselves further about him. If we saw proof of God everywhere we looked, we could settle down in absolute certainty. As Pascal once put it, “I am in a pitiable state, where I have wished a hundred times over that, if there is a God supporting nature, [nature] should unequivocally proclaim him, and that, if the signs [of God] in nature are deceptive, they should be completely erased; that nature should say all or nothing so that I could see what course I ought to follow… My whole heart strains to know what the true good is in order to pursue it; no price would be too high to pay for eternity.“
Pascal helps us to sense the pain of dealing with mixed signals, and at the same time, he gives us a hint as to why God hides himself. Pascal says, “My whole heart strains.“ His confusion and uncertainty arouse in his heart a growing desire to know “the true good.“ He seeks and seeks and seeks some more.
Why would God give too many hints to ignore and yet keep himself hidden? Could it be that God hides in order that we will seek him all the more eagerly? Could it be that God would do us more harm than good if he gave billboards in the sky or offered a demonstration a week to people whose hearts never had a deep longing for him? Could it be that hard questions do us more good than easy answers?
We have a lot of questions about why God hides, and it’s good to struggle with those questions. That way we can work up a longing for the only Answer that means anything: Jesus himself. Before God lets us find him, he first moves our hearts to question and seek and cry out for him. It’s hide and seek: God hides so that we will seek him. In Jeremiah 29:13, God says, “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.“ Jesus says, “Seek and you will find“ (Matthew 7:7).
Creatures of Darkness
It’s tempting to complain when it seems that God doesn’t make it easy to believe in him, but before we complain too much, we first need to ask why this is so. The Bible is blunt. God has what it takes to display his majesty and power openly, but we don’t have what it what it takes to benefit from an open display (see Isaiah 59:1—2,9—10).
Through our sin, we cut ourselves off from the light of God and we become creatures of darkness. We can’t stand light. We’re like bats who fly only at night, or like moles who spend most of their time underground, or like cockroaches who live in dark places. If creatures like this are suddenly faced with a bright light, what happens? They can’t stand it. The brighter the light is, the more it hurts and blinds them. They hurry out of the light and into the first dark place they can find.
As sinners we are creatures of darkness. Jesus says: “Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.“ We’re like cockroaches who scurry for cover every time the light goes on. “But,“ says Jesus, “whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God“ (John 3:19—20).
Earlier I quoted Bertrand Russell, the atheist who said that if God did exist, he didn’t provide enough evidence for someone to believe. Russell always presented himself as a man of logic, but he had many wives and mistresses, including rather young girls and some of his own servants. That raises the question: did God provide too little evidence, or did Bertrand Russell simply love darkness rather than light because his deeds were evil? For many of us, our inability to see God is due more to our love of darkness than a lack of God’s light.
There may be times when you think to yourself, “I’d seek to know Jesus, I’d give up my sinful habits, I’d pray and read the Bible, I’d go to church, I’d live the way Jesus teaches, I’d do all these things if I could be sure that God is real and that Jesus is the way.“ But what if you’ve got it reversed? What if, in order to be sure that Jesus is the way, you first have to seek him? What if certainty comes only after seeking, only after you truly look for him by renouncing sin, by praying and studying Scripture, by worshiping and associating with Christian people, and by living each day as Christ teaches?
These things, of themselves, won’t save you or give you eternal life, but they will put you in a position accept God’s revelation and receive his gift of eternal life when you encounter it. The Bible says, “God ’will give to each person according to what he has done.’ To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor, and immortality, he will give eternal life“ (Romans 2:7). God says, “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.“ Don’t be surprised at not finding him if you haven’t been seeking him. Don’t expect to see the light if you’re not even looking for the switch.
What Miracles Don’t Do
I asked earlier why God doesn’t do a “Demonstration of the Week,“ a sensational miracle every seven days so that everybody can’t help but believe in him. That’s just another way of asking what many people ask: Why doesn’t God do today all the same kind of miracles that the Bible talks about?
To deal with that question, we first need to get beyond the notion that the thousands of years covered by the Bible were filled with one miracle after another. Most of the time there were no miracles. The miracles of the Bible mostly happened in bursts during a few relatively short periods, at some great turning points. So unless we live at one of the great turning points in God’s plan for history, we shouldn’t be too shocked if we don’t see many obvious miracles.
C.S. Lewis points this out, and he also reminds us that miracles and martyrdoms seem to go together. Those who did the greatest miracles also faced ferocious opposition and even death for the sake of the Lord. So if you demand sensational miracles, are you also ready for the pain and martyrdom that often comes to those involved in miracles?
But let’s back up a minute. I’ve hinted at why committed Christians should be careful about demanding all sorts of astonishing demonstrations, but what about those who aren’t yet committed to the Lord? Why doesn’t God do miracles for them just to make sure they all believe?
When we ask that, we’re assuming that such proof would do the job and make us all believe in God. But is that really so? Would it really convince us? And what kind of God would we be convinced of? And what kind of people would we be once we were convinced? If we look at two periods in the Bible when the greatest miracles happened, do we find that everybody was instantly filled with faith, hope and love? Hardly.
The Bible’s first great outburst of miracles was at the time of Moses and the Israelite exodus from slavery in Egypt. God unleashed fearsome and miraculous plagues on Pharoah and the Egyptians, but did these demonstrations of God’s power make Pharoah repent? No, his heart just got harder and harder. God kept turning up the power, but Pharoah just got more stubborn, and all the firstborn of Egypt and the entire Egyptian army ended up dead. Miracles on the outside don’t automatically change people on the inside.
Now let’s look at a later and even greater burst of miracles, the miracles of Jesus. What impact did they have? Did everybody believe in Jesus as Savior and Lord? No, these miracles were marvelous demonstrations of God’s power and goodness, but the hearts of Jesus’ enemies just got harder and harder. They said that the miracles were the work of Satan and not of God. And shortly after Jesus’ greatest miracle, raising Lazarus from the dead, Jesus’ enemies seized him and tortured and executed him.
Meanwhile, Jesus’ friends were impressed by his miracles and saw them as the work of God, but they misunderstood the purposes of God and misunderstood what they themselves ought to be like as Jesus’ followers. They had visions of being bigshots in an earthly Kingdom where God’s power would simply give them what they wanted. It was only in Jesus’ death and resurrection that they began to know the true reality of God’s love and forgiveness and his call to love and humility toward others.
If the history recorded in the Bible is any indicator, it appears that miracles don’t have the power to transform us or bring us to God. If God’s main policy was one of openly demonstrating his power through signs and wonders, his enemies would just fear and hate him more than ever, and his friends would tend to become proud and to misunderstand who the Lord is and what sort of people he wants them to be.
God doesn’t always give all his light and warmth and fullness to those who aren’t ready for him, and it’s a good thing he doesn’t. Jesus will indeed come in all his glory some day, and when that happens, people will certainly be convinced of his reality, but if you don’t already trust him, your reaction will instantly harden into one of hatred and terror. You’ll be so desperate to hide from his brightness that you will cry out for the mountains to fall on you and hide you (Revelation 6:16).
And even for those already long for God, a sudden and stunning revelation may not be the healthiest thing at this point. A time of seeking and search and gradual discovery may be best. If you’re blind and have eye surgery and bandages over your eyes, your surgeon won’t take you out into bright sunshine and then rip the bandages off suddenly. No, you’ll be in a room that’s not so bright and you’ll open your eyes slowly so that you can gradually get used to the light. If you’ve been lost in cold weather and you’ve lost so much body heat that you’re in danger of dying from hypothermia, should your rescuers put you in a tub of piping hot water? That might sound good, but it would most likely kill you. You need to warm up gradually in order to survive. If you’ve gone without food for a great many days, your rescuers need to start out by feeding you just a little bit at a time. If they give you a huge feast right away, you could get terribly sick and even die.
You may think that what you need is a burst of supernatural light, an immersion in divine warmth, a feast of miracles? But is that really what you need? What if you’re not ready? What if God reveals just a bit of himself and hides the rest because you’re not capable of handling any more? What if the act of seeking is itself the first stage in finding? What if you need to deal with what you see dimly before you can see God face to face? What if you need to make the most of small things before you’re capable of handling great things without being ruined by pride?
Hide and Seek
If you don’t have much knowledge or certainty about God, you’ve got two options. You can ignore God and say it’s because he hasn’t given you enough evidence, or else you can take the evidence he has given as a call to keep seeking until you find.
God often hides himself, but that’s not the real problem. The problem comes when we don’t seek him. One author says it’s like a child playing hide and seek, who finds a place to hide but then gives himself away by clearing his throat. The only way to miss finding him is if you’re not looking for him.
God may hide, but he keeps giving himself away. He’s done marvelous things in creation that are more than enough to impress those who have eyes to see. God has done great miracles at crucial points of history, and he has recorded these things in the Bible to uplift and encourage all those who are open to his reality. God has taught great and profound wisdom in ways that convince and transform those who have ears to hear. But the creation, the miracles, and the teaching of Jesus remain obscure and hidden if you refuse to search and seek.
Jesus did many miracles, but he usually tried to keep his miracles as secret as possible, and he never did a miracle when his enemies demanded one. Jesus did a great deal of teaching, but he often taught in riddles and stories and strange sayings. And in his greatest work Jesus died publicly for all to see, but the meaning of his death wasn’t so obvious to everyone. To all who seek and love God, Jesus’ death is forgiveness and love and eternal life; but to those who don’t seek God, Jesus’ death is the final proof that Jesus was a failure.
God acts in ways that will help those who seek him and at the same time bring even greater darkness and confusion to those who don’t seek him. In Psalm 18, a child of God prays and says: “To the faithful you show yourself faithful… but to the crooked you show yourself shrewd. You save the humble but bring low those whose eyes are haughty. You, O Lord, keep my lamp burning; my God turns my darkness into light“ (Psalm 18:25—28).
What’s the best way to seek God? Well, if you’re playing hide and seek, you start by looking in a person’s favorite hiding place. What is God’s favorite hiding place? Well, it’s not in a logical proof or a miraculous display. God leaves some hints in those places, but God’s favorite hiding place is the cross of Jesus Christ. Nowhere is God more hidden, and nowhere is he more clearly revealed. The cross where Jesus died is the best place to find the reality of God, the love of God for sinners, and the justice of God against sin, revealed in a way that changes not just your mind but your heart as well.
If you’re serious about seeking God, then look to Jesus the crucified. Study the Bible and pray earnestly that God will lead you into a deeper understanding and acceptance of who Jesus is and what his death and resurrection mean for you. Meet together at church with other people who focus on the cross of Christ. And even if you haven’t yet found the certainty you’re looking for, try to live as you would if you had that certainty.
Jesus said that people who sin can’t stand to come into the light. If you want to seek God, you need to look to the cross, and you need to live by the cross. You might say, “I would give up my old life if I had a strong and living faith.“ But maybe Jesus is telling you, “You will have faith if you give up your old life——if you deny yourself and take up your cross and follow me“ (Matthew 16:24). If you seek God in that way, then you have Jesus’ guarantee that you will find him. You need to do it before you know if it works.
Pascal wrote that “there are only two classes of persons who can be called reasonable: those who serve God with all their heart because they know him and those who seek him with all their heart because they do not know him.“ If you already know and serve the Lord, then I rejoice with you. If you don’t yet know God but you’re eagerly seeking him, the search can be perplexing, even agonizing, but be assured that you will indeed find the Lord. You wouldn’t be searching if he hadn’t already awakened that hunger, that holy curiosity, that longing, in your heart. God never promised to make himself so obvious that you’d find him without looking. But he did promise, “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.“
David Feddes
Dr. David Feddes is pastor of Family of Faith Church and provost of Christian Leaders Institute, which supports mentor-based ministry training through online courses. David is also adjunct missiologist for Crossroad Bible Institute, which provides biblical distance education to more than 40,000 people in prison. Previously he served as broadcast minister for the Back to God radio program, reaching people in more than fifty countries. David earned his Ph.D. in intercultural studies from Trinity International University, Deerfield, IL and is a graduate of Calvin Theological Seminary. He and his wife, Wendy, have nine children (one in heaven).
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