Is God hiding his face from us?

Sooner or later, in your spiritual life, you end up battling with God as I often have when faced with an illness that has no cure or a problem that seems to have no solution. It's in moments when you desperately need God that he seems to be silent and the longing for him to act gets unbearable. Where is he at such times? Does he not hear your prayers? Does he not see your tears?

At such times we can easily relate to the disciples in the boat amidst a raging storm who go and find Jesus sleeping in the stern. They seem terribly upset to find him so unaffected by the chaos around and they wake him up, just as we often shout out to God for help when he doesn't seem to respond to our problems. The disciples address Jesus saying, "Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?" To answer their doubts, Jesus calms the storm in an instant saying "Peace! Be still!" How can Jesus give peace when there is chaos around? The key is in the next two words, "Be still", it reminds us of Psalm 46:10 "Be still and know that I am God". Definitely if we are aware that he is God, we would know that he is in charge and we would step back and allow him to restore peace back into the situation. It is no wonder that after he calms the sea, the disciples question "Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?" They were closest to him, yet they forgot to acknowledge his divinity, as a result they felt that the problem was too big even for God to solve.

But why is it that God makes us wait....
Jesus loved Lazarus, but when his sisters sent word to Jesus that he was sick, Jesus stayed two days longer in the place where he was. Here Mary and Martha, would have been very upset with Jesus for the delay which ultimately caused the death of Lazarus, however when we read the entire passage we realize that Jesus had much bigger plans for Lazarus which the human mind could not comprehend. Jesus loved Lazarus so much, that he risked his own safety, by going back to Judea where the authorities were trying to kill him. He knew from the very beginning that he could allow death to come to Lazarus, as he had the power to give him back his life. For Mary and Martha, Jesus would have arrived too late, but for Jesus it was the right time, the time at which God would be glorified through Lazarus. It is clear from this passage that God doesn't cause us suffering, yet if we take our pains to him, he is able to bring something good out of it.

God's appointed time
Our understanding of time is described in Greek as 'chronos' and in English we call it the chronological order. However, the Bible describes God's time as 'kairos' which means the appointed time or the opportune time. In order to understand it, look back to the time when a prayer of yours was answered. You might have been praying for something for a really long time and you might have felt like giving up. Then one day, you experience something so extraordinary, you just can't comprehend how all the pieces fell together, just when you thought it was all falling apart. The experience leaves a mark on you and you grow closer to God.

In Mark 1:15 it says "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near." The Jews had been waiting for centuries for God's kingdom to reign over the world but no one knew when it would come to pass. There was a gap of 400 years between Malachi the last prophet of the Old Testament and John the Baptist and without prophets to communicate God's word to them, many believed God was sleeping and the heavens were shut. However, we know that God had not forgotten the world because he fulfilled his promise by opening the heavens and sending the Spirit upon his son Jesus who saved the world.

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Wrestling with Scripture

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