A skeptical friend once questioned me, "If God really existed, why wouldn't He simply write across the sky, 'Here I am, I am real'." In other words, why doesn't He make His existence more obvious? Why is He so elusive?
I believe, and the Bible says, that God HAS made His existence obvious, even to the skeptic. And He is revealing Himself in a multitude of ways. One way is through the magnificence of the created world, and the balance and perfection of the Universe which speaks of an Intelligent Designer. In effect, God HAS written across the sky, "I AM." As the psalmist says of the magnificent work of creation that God has accomplished, "The heavens are telling of the glory of God, and their expanse is declaring the work of His hands."
Paul of Tarsus goes along with this when he writes in his letter to the Romans, "For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly evident, being understood through what has been created, so that people who refuse to believe are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God, or give thanks; but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools."
A second way God has revealed Himself is on a more personal and relational level. Paul also says in Romans, "That which is known about God has been made evident within man, for God made it evident." In other words, the greatest evidence of the existence of our creator God is that it has been made self- evident to us from within. God-awareness is hard-wired into our very consciousness. Only obsessive cultivation and grooming by a twisted anti-God culture has deceived humans into ignoring what is plainly obvious.
Some people have said that when the skeptical scientists finally come to the truth, they will find that the theologians have already been there ahead of them. I would rather put it this way - that when scientists AND theologians finally reach the truth, they will find another sort of person ahead of them, no doubt a little grandmother, full of the Holy Spirit, who kneels every day to pray and converse with her heavenly Father. For God has not made it that difficult to know Him. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to know God, and to carry on a real relationship with Him. Jesus said, "You must be converted and become like little children...For to such belong the kingdom of God." Being an intellectual is wonderful, but the mind is not the highest and best part of humanity, and it is not the primary way we contact God. God is a spirit, and we contact Him spirit to spirit, our human spirit to His divine spirit.
A third way that God has revealed Himself is through taking the form of a human being, and coming into time and history as a Jewish man, Jesus of Nazareth. That is what we celebrate at Christmas, God becoming flesh to dwell among us, and to make peace with us through His substitutionary death. "In these last days, God has spoken to us in His Son...and He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature." As Jesus said, "If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father."
I used to be one of those skeptics. Like doubting Thomas I declared, "Unless I see in His hands the imprint of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe." But notice that Thomas got what he was after because He continued to seek. Jesus revealed Himself to Thomas. I am so glad now that I continued seeking for God to show Himself real to me. He is not very far away from any of us. Please ask Him to show Himself as real to you.
@ copyright 1999 by Scott H. Northrup. All rights reserved.