Spiritual Hiccups - Answer Me, God!

"I love the LORD, because he has heard my voice and my supplications."   So says the opening of Psalm 116.  So how do you love the LORD when God doesn't hear your voice or answer your cries?  This psalm is one of many that speak of loving God because of God's mercy, faithfulness, and steadfast love, because God helped or saved or rescued.  So what happens when God seems to have abandoned you, when the patterns and practices of faith that have sustained you stop working?

I suspect that most people for whom faith is a big part of their lives have times when God's absence is terrifyingly real.  Even Jesus cries out that God has forsaken him while on the cross.  At such times a happy, cheery faith is impossible, though several other options are available.  We could conclude that God is angry with us and has abandoned us because we deserve it.  We could conclude that our original faith was a mistake, that God doesn't do the things we thought God did or that God doesn't even exist.  We could conclude that we were wrong about the character of God, that God is not abounding in steadfast love and mercy.  We could conclude that God is simply forgetful or capricious.

Surely Christians experience God's absence as much as the people of the Old Testament did, yet we seem strangely unwilling to engage God as our ancient forebears did.  We seem curiously unwilling to call God to task, to beseech God to remember and act faithfully.  Even we Protestants, who speak so much of God's grace, seem happy to presume than any problem that we have in our relationship with God must be of our making, must be our fault.  Many people of faith seem so intent on protecting God's reputation that they will not hold God responsible for anything.  Or perhaps they are protecting their own fragile faith rather than God's reputation.

I have said many times that there is more honest faith in angrily shaking a fist at God than in a laundry list of pious platitudes.  And I am as mystified by church folk who claim never to doubt or question God as I am by married couples who claim to have never argued or uttered a harsh word to one another.

Now certainly the mystery of God, life, and creation is such that we will never fully comprehend it.  And so we will undoubtedly misread, misunderstand, and misconstrue God's actions.  But simply to keep smiling sweetly and say, "All is well," is dishonest.  And no relationship can be built on such dishonesty. 

God, I love you because.  Jesus, I follow you because.  I have entered into the faith relationship because.  And when I can't find or feel that because, things get a little shaky.  At such times, we need to be able to say to God, "Show us the because.  God, please, show us the because.

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