This god does not exist Week 6, 2017

Our child once confessed to repeatedly eavesdropping on us in the bedroom waiting to hear when the identity of the real parents would be revealed. Our behaviour, especially in the aspect of discipline, didn’t add up to the childhood picture of what real parents are. We must have been the adoptive parents to be meting out such judgements was the reasoning. I know of many children who doubted their parents really bore them, sired them, all for this same reasoning: “My real parents couldn’t treat me this way!” Children have a childish concept of parents. When they grow and mature, the realisation dawns on them and genuine appreciation kicks in. One of them recently said to one of us, “I now know it was love though it didn’t seem like it then.” Thanks be to the Most High God.

Is it strange then when so many “reason it out” that God doesn’t exist? If He did why then are all these evils happening? Some argue that God is no longer in control if He ever really was, else our prayers are meeting with some strange answers. God will not allow accidents to happen, cancer to ravage loving mothers; hurricanes and earthquakes to kill good people if He is in charge and loving we say. But God is good, infinitely so, and His ways are past finding out. Don't you know? Haven't you heard? The LORD is the eternal God, Creator of the earth. He never gets weary or tired; his wisdom cannot be measured. Is 40:28(CEV) 

Do you remember Gideon’s response to the angel’s salutation “The Lord is with you”? "If I may ask, sir, why has all this happened to us if the LORD is with us? What happened to all the wonderful things that our fathers told us the LORD used to do---how he brought them out of Egypt? The LORD has abandoned us and left us to the mercy of the Midianites." Jdg 6:13 (GNB)  Does this sound like modern day response and reasoning? I think so too. The angel never argued with him then. Don’t be amazed if God and angels don’t engage you in an argument now. Well these conclusions about God (like that of many a child about their parents) are because God doesn’t fit into our mould, our concept of what the good, almighty, loving God should be like. That god doesn’t exist- the god of our imaginations. "My thoughts," says the LORD, "are not like yours, and my ways are different from yours”. Is55:8 (GNB) Remember that God is light, and in him there is no darkness—none at all!1Jn1:5(ISV) and He warns “as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways” Is55:8(ESV) Do you know how high the heavens are above the earth? How far is furtherest reach of the cosmos?

So do we have all the answers? Certainly not. Now all we can see of God is like a cloudy picture in a mirror. Later we will see him face to face. We don't know everything, but then we will, just as God completely understands us. 1Cor 13:12(CEV). We don’t have all the answers but we have the Answer: Jesus who died and arose for us. If when children grow up they appreciate and thank their parents and know what real love means, why won’t I hold on to my trust?