Hidden God

Ever feel like God moves in other people’s life and not yours? I read stories about how God has met others financially, or in healing, or clearly leading them into missions. And I wonder. If I can pull back just a little I can see myriad ways that He has met and led me. I can even point to one or two big things He’s done like my marriage and my teenager. Still ‘the hunger stays.’

There is a current running through Christian thought that speaks of His being, or seeming, hidden. The result for us is that, “Like the deer pants for the water so my soul cries out for Thee.” Seems like my life is ever that battle between believing and panting after. I trust that God wants it like this.

The Psalms are full of this language. “Do not be silent at my tears, Why have you forgotten me, Why have you rejected us forever?” The cry of the common man in a cruel world where God seems absent. I have hours and days where my heart echoes this cry; in loneliness, in brokenness, in persecution. It is in those dark periods that my hunger for God is deepest.

Though this thread runs through the Psalms more so they claim God’s presence sure as the Sun and solid as rock; Let us shout joyfully to the rock of our salvation, God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever, my heart will not fear.” Finally I find consolation in the words of Him who came in the flesh that we might see God, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”