Why some are disillusioned with God

Whether God answers our request to be healed or delivered from a difficult situation depends on why we are asking. If we wish to be healed so we can better serve him, he will say yes. If we wish to be healed so we can ¹"spend it on ourselves," he will not. 

Our challenge is knowing the difference. If we think we are asking for the right reason and are not, we become disillusioned with God. This is our shortcoming, not God's. 

We think God is a celestial Santa Claus or our heavenly butler and servant when, instead, He is the all-wise, loving, infinitely beautiful, and powerful Creator and Sustainer of all creation. 

"You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions." Jas 4:3 

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Footnotes: 

¹ James 4:1-10  

[1] What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? [2] You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. 

You do not have, because you do not ask. [3] You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. 

[4] You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? 

world = the systematic or worldwide pursuit by all humanity to find life in created things - such as wealth, fame, power, praise from others, sensual pleasures, etc. - instead of in the Creator (Rom 1:21-23) 

Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. 

Passionate pursuit of created things instead of the Creator is like pursuing a woman other than your wife to fulfill your passions. In doing so, you are unfaithful to your wife and have made yourself her antagonist. 

[5] Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”? 

What kind of spirit has God put within us?  A spirit that He created that longs for infinite love. Love that can only be satisfied by the Source of love - our Creator.  He will not share in our pursuit or loyalty to any other lover. We will give Him all our loyalty and faithfulness, or we will give Him none of it. 

[6] But he gives more grace. Therefore, it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” [7] Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 

Pride is the invitation that allows the evil one to get a foothold in our lives. Humility shuts the door on his foot and opens the door to grace. When we open the door to grace, we invite God in.  

[8] Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. [9] Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. [10] Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you." 

Want to see God move on your behalf? Humbly recognize He is life itself and the only satisfier of our hearts. He knows best what we need most; we don't. 

Is there Order and design?

Even though things are broken, there is still order in the world. The universe is not random chaos. Most things remain predictable; clear patterns and design persist. If that weren’t true, the scientific method itself would be impossible—it would be a meaningless, useless myth that we should abandon. Yet we use it consistently, knowing it works.

Moreover, to call something “broken,” we must have a standard of what “whole” looks like. The very idea of brokenness depends on comparing it to an original order or design. Something can only be broken if it was first ordered (or designed) to function a certain way. 

We see a watch lying on the ground with its glass cracked and hands frozen. We instantly recognize it as “broken” only because we already know what a properly working watch is supposed to look like and do: keep time accurately, with all gears turning together in precise harmony. 

If there were no such thing as an intended, designed order for a watch—if watches were just random lumps of metal that sometimes ticked and sometimes didn’t—no one would ever say “this watch is broken.” They’d just say, “This is a watch.” 

The concept of “broken” only makes sense against the backdrop of an original “right” or “ordered” state. 

The same applies to the world: we can call parts of it broken only because, under the cracks, we still see an underlying pattern and design that things are meant to follow.

For a discussion on violating design, click here

For a discussion on our world being full of design and beauty, click here

For a discussion about how Christ is our Designer, click here

For a discussion on celebrating our design and our Designer, click here

For a discussion on how everything is broken, click here.

For a discussion on how we are created for glory, click here.

Suffering... has God abandon us?

[5] Thus says the Lord: 

“Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the Lord. (i.e. "...who by their ⁴unrighteousness suppresses the truth..." - Rom 1:18) 

[6] He is like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see any good come. He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land. 

[7] “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. 

[8]  He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.” 

[9] The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? - Jer 17:5-9 ESV 

Why do pain and suffering remain? 

Pain and suffering is the natural (organic) result of our ongoing disconnect from God. 

Our disconnect is due to our ongoing distrust of Him. 

God does not curse us. Our disconnect is our curse.

Pain reveals and exposes the depth of our rebellious distrust of God. It is the fruit of that distrust. 

Why does suffering remain? So we might see the need to have our distrust of God purged from our hearts and lives. 

Why? So we might turn back to God and find true life in Him and more fully partake of His love as He designed us to. 

We come into this world in a state of rebellious distrust and absent our original connection/union with ¹God we were designed for. God seeks to restore this connection so we might be in relationship with Him again.

God is love and therefore life itself - and we are in His image, i.e., created to receive and give love. His absence - due to our rebellious distrust - creates an emptiness we desperately seek to fill. We seek to fill it with anything other than Him who alone can fill us. We look to anything we have access to or can "get our hands on" to fill the void of God's absence. In short, we trust in ourselves to fill the void instead of God  - "...we make flesh our strength..." 

Pain is such a common part of life that we rarely consider it exists because of ²God's absence, much less because of our rebellious distrust of Him. So we slog along in our current rebellion in painful emptiness to try and make the best of things. 

We rarely consider how deeply we distrust God and how this impacts everything we do. ³We refuse to see that we - and everything else - depends on God our Creator for our very breath and existence. Suggesting this is our true condition is mocked and ridiculed. Accepting this is fiercely resisted and denied individually and collectively. 

Occasionally, our pain and suffering become so acute and our ability to handle it so inadequate that we see and finally acknowledge our true condition and turn back to Him in total trust. 

Life is an ongoing journey through the wilderness of this broken world to test whether we will continue to choose rebellious independence from God - as Adam and Eve did - or unconditional trust in God - as Christ displayed while on earth. 

Does suffering mean that God has abandoned us? Quite the opposite.

Suffering exists so that we might recognize we are not created to be our own God and return to Him—who is Love itself and the Source of love, life, and all things. Our struggles are the means by which we grow deep roots into Him. 

Every time we experience the loss of something we look to for life - whether that be wealth, fame, natural gifts or talents, our health, recreation, substance abuse, a loved one etc. - it's an opportunity for us to turn to Him who alone IS life. 

Christ asked what do we profit if we gain the whole world and loose our very souls. But the opposite is also true. If losing the world results in gaining our souls we profit infinitely. 

He sent Christ as proof of His desire to pour out His love on you. He did for you what you can not do - trust God without conditions - and offers to credit you with His righteousness. Will you trust Him?

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FOOTNOTES: 

¹in whose  image we were created 

²if we acknowledge God at all, it is to blame Him for our pain instead of acknowledging our rebellious distrust, which results in His absence. 

³I'm referring to our objective dependence, not a conscious (subjective) dependence. Everything that exists is because God brought it into existence. This is the objective reality of our world and our existence. Our subjective denial of this is our problem. 

⁴God does not curse us. Our rebellious distrust of him does. 

What is unrighteousness: ἀδικίᾳ (adikia)? - sometimes translated as wickedness. Where does it come from? It is the outward fruit of our inward rebellious distrust of God that results in... 

wickedness 

Strong's 93: 

Injustice, unrighteousness, hurt. 

From adikos; injustice; morally, wrongfulness.

There are two elements to unrighteousness. The outward manifestation - our conduct - of an inward disposition of distrust. One is the result of the other. 

All "sinful" conduct - no matter what outward *form it takes - springs forth  from distrust in God. Distrust is the energy, passion, and desire behind bad actions. At the heart of sinful behavior is distrust - unbelief i.e. distrust of God - unbelief - is the essence of all sinful behavior. 

*they are "...works of the flesh..."

Galatians 5:19-21 ESV

19 Now the works of the flesh are evident: 

sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21 envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. 

I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. 

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