So I got to thinking, is Microsoft working? No seriously, I don’t hear their conversations or meetings. I don’t see their email traffic and I sure don’t spend time enough on their website to confirm if there is life beyond the façade? I think it is all one big lie – they aren’t doing anything. Their leaders are on a beach somewhere and whatever is happening is being done by someone else.
So who would believe that?
Of course they are working. They are burning the midnight oil to bring products to market and to develop new solutions, whilst meeting with marketers, distributors and shareholders. I cannot believe it would be any other way.
So how can we be sure? Well, it is because we see the outputs. We see a good share price, we see new products coming off their shelves and we can actually engage their help desks to get support, advice or to download specific add-ons.
NASA is also a workforce full of beach bums, who while away the hours on Florida beaches until someone shouts that the next space-vehicle is ready for rollout and launch. Then, for the sake of appearances, they all rock up at control centers and checkpoints, or wherever it is they must be to maintain the appearance of doing something.
Nonsense – they are at it 24x7x52, because that is what it takes to get a spaceship launched and to meet stakeholder expectations.
So now I must ask – is God doing anything? I can’t hear, see or feel Him, and no one has seen any tangible evidence of Him for 2000 years now. He just seems … well absent. How can I be sure He is around at all and not dead or focusing on a newer, better version of earth, without the bugs and flaws that this one has? Surely if He is around at all, He is somewhere else.
How can we argue that in the face of evidence that is at least, yet far more, compelling than Microsoft’s or NASA’s outputs?
We see the church still advancing and witness the daily miracles of sunrises, sunsets, births and deaths. We hear daily testimonies of answered prayers and the mysteries of His subtle, divine handiwork in the lives of all who trust Him.
The world works and will continue to work, because God is. The only time He will ever remove His hand is during the brief reign of antichrist. Then, according to Paul in 2 Thessalonians 2:7, He will withdraw His hand to allow the human race to bring judgment on itself.
CS Lewis spoke of God’s silences, those desert phases where He seems so quiet, so absent, so disengaged from our crises. He spoke of how fearful it made him feel, but went on to add that the desert is far from empty - it is alive with His presence.
Indeed, if you go into any, supposedly empty or vacated desert place, watch and wait for a while and you will find the emptiness is teeming with life. It survives and its partners are very effective at adapting to the harsh environment. They ensure a quality of coexistence that transcends human understanding.
The bushman of the Kalahari have lived in the desert for eons, but because they are so in tune with its mysteries, rhythms and moods, they are able to live off the desert and have never found reason to exchange their harsh world for our harsher world.
We do wrong in assuming that just because we cannot hear His breath, see His handiwork or feel His presence that He is not around. That is not true of NASA or Microsoft and it sure isn’t true of God.
He is at work when the widow weeps her silent tears at night. He is at work when the childless ache for a father. He is at work when the sparrow flies off in search of food. He is at work when a family cries to Him for His intervention in a time of grief. He is at work when a broken teen wrestles with drugs and He is there when the soul despairs. He is at work when an old man reaches the end of His days and He is at work when the rest of the world is sleeping. He never rests.
(c) Peter Eleazar @ www.4u2live.net
(c) Peter Eleazar @ www.4u2live.net
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