This is an excerpt from Philip Yancey's book "Disappointment with God". Read it during my devotion last night...and it touched me deeply. It's a good reminder that we need to see things from God's perspective...for our own view is often narrow and limited.
I like how Yancey summarized Job's 'quarrel/ debate' with God...
"God reeled off natural phenomea- the solar system, constellations, thunderstorms, wild animals- that Job could not begin to explain.
If you can't comprehend the visible world you live in, how dare ou expect to comprehend a world you cannot even see! Conscious of the big picture at last, Job repented in dust and ashes."
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-by Philip Yancey
Why doesn't God intervene and make himself obvious? Why doesn't he speak aloud so we can hear him? We yearn for miracle, for the supernatural in its pure, unadulterated form.
I chose the word "unadulterated" deliberately because it betrays a sentiment that is central to this issue. We moderns strive to separate natural from supernatural. The natural world that we can touch and smell and see and hear seems self-evident; the supernatural world, however is another matter. There is nothing certain about it, no skin on it, and that bothers us. We want proof. We want the supernatural to enter the natural world in a way that retains the glow, that leaves scorch marks, that rattles the ear drums.
The God revealed in the Bible does not seem to share our desire. Whereas we cleave natural from supernatural, and seen from unseen, God seeks to bring the two together. His goal, one might say, is to rescue the "lower" world, to restore the natural realm of fallen creation to its original state, where spirit and matter dwelt together in harmony....
From that perspective, the natural world is not impoverished, but graced with miracle. And the miracle of natural world reclaimed reached a point of climax in the Grand Miracle, when the actual Presence of God took up residence in a "natural" body exactly like ours; the Word transposed into flesh.
In one body, Christ brought the two worlds together, joining spirit and matter at long last, unifying creation in a way that had not been seen since Eden....
From below, we tend to think of miracle as an invasion, a breaking into the natural world with spectacular force, and we long for such signs. But from above, from God's point of view, the real miracle is one of transposition: that human bodies can become vessels filled with Spirit, that ordinary human acts of charity and goodness can become nothing less than the incarnation of God on earth...
Is God silent? I answer the question with another question: Is the church silent? We are his mouthpiece, his designated vocal chords on this planet.
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