Is God hidden? ...

Wednesday, Feb 18, 2015. Is God a hidden God? Yesterday we talked about listening to him. But how do you? Is it so easy to listen to God, is he not hidden? Who has seen God? When you look into the world, there are not many people who would easily say: “yes, God, of course, just living around the corner …”

The Recognition Problem …

Let us pose the question in a slightly different way. If God would be standing next to you in human form, would you be able to identify him? Would you recognize him as God? What is it that would help you to say: this is God, this is the Lord? If he came with a lot of tricks, with miracles - would that convince you: this is God?

The identification problem is in the heart of God's communication to us. Let us put it plainly: God is talking a lot to us. But we have difficulties to identify his words and sentences. And even when we identify his words as his, we have difficulties to understand. We have something like deaf ears.

It is interesting: the communication with God depends on our reaction, on our attitude. It depends on the way we listen. When we just live our way, but do not want to hear, we do not hear and do not understand. It is a process, which leads to unbelief. We cannot hear any more, after we decided not not listen and not to act.

Modern theory talks about “branching points” in some dynamical system. With our communication with God we experience a clear branching point: either we open our heart and our mind, we listen and do - and then we learn more and we are able to communicate with the Lord. Or we do not open our heart and our mind, we then loose the ability to hear him, even if we are still able to read the words. Then, we do no longer have the ability to communicate with the Lord.

Dynamical Branching Points …

In the New Testament Jesus insists on the fact that there is enough written for us humans to be able to listen to God. He insists on it strongly. In the Gospel of Luke, for example, there is the story of “Lazarus and the Rich Man”. In a discussion about how to be saved, Abraham insists on the Old Testament to be completely sufficient:

29 But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.’ 30 And he said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ 31 He said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.’” (Luke 16, 29-31)

Today, we interpret this in a slightly more general sense. We include the New Testament into our biblical canonical selection of books. But the principle is still the same: there is enough written. God has talked so much. And God is talking today, intensely, into our life. But the key question is: do we have ears that can hear?

The starting point for ears to hear is our own decisions. If we decide that we sincerely want to search the Lord, that we want to open our life to his presence, we will start to develop ears who listen. Faith is a word for trust, for trusting our life into his hands. Faith means to discover that he is trustworthy and good. Faith means to discover that he deserves the name “love”. Faith means to open our heart. (RWEP) ... more texts