I just preached on John 6. This is the account where Jesus feeds around 20,000 people with only 5 loaves and 2 fish. What happens next is the people chase Jesus down. Imagine a throng of 20,000 people following you to your next destination! The people aren’t interested in putting their faith in Jesus though, they are simply looking for him to do another miracle for them. He wants to be their God and their friend, but they only want him to be their vending machine…
We often ask, “Why doesn’t God make himself more obvious?” If God did a miracle for me, then I’d truly believe in him. If God showed up like Princess Leia in a hologram image and spoke to me in a booming voice, then I’d believe in him! 
First off, I don’t think you would. It’s not a lack of evidence that causes most to not believe, it’s that people don’t want to obey someone else’s will, even if it is God’s. You’d likely end up like the thousands who were following Jesus in John 6, but turned away when he didn’t cater to their request to do yet another miracle. God would talk to you in the hologram, but you’d be upset if he didn’t pay your mortgage for you. It brings up the question, how many miracles does God have to do in order to get you to put your faith in him? It seems like the answer is always, “Just one more!”
What I find interesting about most of the miracles in the Bible, as well as some in contemporary life, is that they seem to lead to more of a superficial faith than a faith of true depth and substance. I think it is so easy for us to worship miracles, rather than worship God. What good did the feeding of the 20,000 in John 6 accomplish for those people? All it did was create an appetite for more miracles and an expectation and sense of entitlement that Jesus was a magician meant to entertain them.
All the while, Jesus is on bended knee, professing his love for us, proposing marriage, desiring the ultimate level of friendship and relationship with us, yet we are ticked off because he won’t give us more free fish & chips. Let the irony of that sink in…the God who created the universe cares enough to come and die on the cross for your sins so that you can spend eternity with him in heaven, yet we are angry and turn our backs on him because he won’t do yet another miracle for us. Something seems a little backward there.
An illustration will hopefully help:
My daughter is 1 right now. As she turns four years old in a few years, imagine her saying to me one night, “Daddy, will you prove to me that you’re really my Dad? Will you get a DNA test done? I just need to know for sure, I’m having some doubts.”
What would my response to this be? First and foremost, my heart would be deeply hurt. I’d ask her, “Lexi, all I’ve ever done is love you, what would give you any reason to doubt that I’m really your dad? What else would motivate me to love you the way I do? Is not the relationship I desire to have with you and all I do that flows from that relationship proof enough for you?”
But out of love for her and her peace of mind, I would get the DNA test done and show her the positive results. “Whew” she sighs, “thanks Daddy.” But then the next night when I go to tuck her in she says, “Daddy…can you do another DNA test to prove that you’re really my Dad? I’m having doubts about the other one you did. Those are easily tampered with you know. Someone may have swapped out your sample. If you do another one, then I’ll really believe you’re my daddy.”
At this point, not only would my heart be even further broken but my response would be something like, “Lexi, I love you and I don’t want to spend the rest of our relationship trying to prove my identity to you. I just want to be your father, I just want to love you, I just want to spend time with you, I don’t want to always have to jump through another hoop for you, it’s simply no way to have a loving relationship. I think I’ve shown you enough of who I am; will you simply trust me and love me in return and be my daughter?”
Stop asking God to prove himself. Instead, reflect back on all the ways he already has, on the cross and in the empty tomb, in his beautiful creation, and in the once or twice in a lifetime miracles that you’ve seen him perform in your life. Thank him for these things, submit to his reign in your life, and walk with your Father in love.
12.30.12 Life of Jesus: Feeding Off of Jesus from Lansing Crossroads Church on Vimeo.
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God has a time table for being obvious to people. From the time of the first sin, He has not make Himself obvious to most people. He called Israel out of Egypt to be His nation. However, He never offered them salvation. They failed at being His nation, then Judah did too..
Finally, at the right time (His time) He sent Christ. The Savior was made obvious. He is written in the Bible and many secular histories. Even when He came He would tell people after a miracle, “tell no man.” He did not make Himself obvious. Even His disciples did not understand Him, and He made it clear that it was His desire that He remain misunderstood by most men; Mark 4:9-12 And He said to them, He who has ears to hear, let him hear. And when He was alone, they who were about Him, with the Twelve, asked Him concerning the parable. And He said to them, To you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God. But to those outside, all these things are given in parables so that seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them.
After His sacrifice, He left. Since Pentecost that year, He has been calling individual people–not everyone, I Cor. 1:26. Also note the term “called” in almost ever intro from Paul. When Christ returns, He will raise those who followed Him in this life, and make Himself obvious to everyone on earth, and those He resurrects will be His personal staff. The knowledge of God will fill the earth like the oceans. He will make Jerusalem His headquarters, and rule the world with an unbending rod of His just law.
First, He is letting man see what the world looks like without Him. ours is the world in which we decide for ourselves instead of doing what God–the manufacturer says in His instruction manual. Take a look around this world. It is pretty obvious He is not here. But guess who is obvious? Take a close look 2 Cor. 4:4. It’s not hyperbole. Santa is obvious. Ishtar is obvious, Mary is. St.Christopher is.. The churches with their squabbles over who is in charge are obvious but noticeably absent is the God of the Bible..
Soon, He will be obvious, first in heavenly signs, then actually returning on a white horse with ten thousand of his saints. His time to be obvious will come.
Art
Sorry but the argument in this post is really weak. To say that people don’t believe because they don’t want to obey God fails to consider:
1. Genuine christians that live Godly lives but struggle with doubt or the feeling that God is distant.
2. Followers of other religions, including non orthodox christians e.g JW’s : who do obey a god just not the ‘right’ one. Their problem is not that they don’t want divine authority – they do!
3. There is loads of evidence that the Christian God doesn’t exist. Evolution, sub human species that became extinct, the development of key doctrines over time (and first found in pagan religions e.g hell). Yes there is also evidence for God e.g ressurrection but you need to decide which evidence you go with. And ressurrection evidence is only recorded in the nt. My point is God’s presence is far from obvious.
Your analogy of your daughter doesn’t work. She sees you every day and you speak to her and touch her. She can see you are real. A more appropriate analogy would be if your daughter never saw you but had a letter from you telling her you are her father and you love her and you will see her when she is 50. She would have to decide if she could trust the letter and wonder why you don’t write any more. In that analogy the request for a paternity test wouldn’t seem that unreasonable.
Hi J, thank you for your comment. One quick reply is that the writing a letter to my daughter and leaving until she’s 50 doesn’t work because when Jesus ascended into heaven, he left us his Holy Spirit. God is still with us, even if we can’t see him with our eyes. Your analogy of the letter and then returning when she’s 50 would only work if I could leave my spirit with her in a supernatural way, which I can’t.
You make a good point about Jehovah’s Witnesses and others like them. This blog post wasn’t directed at them, as they are a very very small minority relative to the larger population. A larger population who quite obviously doesn’t want divine authority. Your point is a good one, it’s just not the audience I was writing to in this case.
Thanks for the reply. Having re read my initial post it looks a bit rude so sorry if I came across that way.
My frustration was not with your post but the standard Christian answer to the question about God not making himself more obvious. And this comes from my personal struggles with that question.
I have been an evangelical Christian for 10 years. I have had the privilege to be a member of good bible teaching churches which have a great sense of community and loving commitment to the gospel and each other. I feel at home there. I serve there. In the past I have even preached. Most of close friends are Christians (in fact nearly all of my really close friends are). I have a lovely Christian wife of 1 year. I can’t argue that the christian ‘morality’ makes sense and is a good way to live (e.g. sex, relationships etc). I haven’t had a bad experience of church like some claim (e.g. people being unloving hypocritical etc). And until recently I found joy and peace in the gospel. Basically I find being a christian is great.
But recently I have started to have some massive doubts. Long story short they are doubts about God’s existence. I find the Bible looks more and more like a human book and have some problems with the idea of progressive revelation of key doctrines like the trinity and hell. This coupled with the fact that I begin to see less and less evidence of God in the world (as I hinted at in my last post the existence of pre human sub human species I find difficult to even square with a very not literalist reading of Genesis). I wont bore you with all the things that are troubling me but needless to say there are quite a few things. Are my doubts just a smoke screen for my heart wanting to reject God’s authority? I find that hard to accept. It seems that to say that would be to sweep my doubts under the carpet.
I have every reason to keep believing. It would be easier for me. I cant bear the thought of upsetting my christian friends and family.
But as i said to a muslim once when telling them the gospel ‘if you realize you are on the wrong bus – you need to get off. Even if that upsets others and is hard for you.’
What I feel i need is God to tell me that I am on the right bus! Surely it is not too much to ask. Especially if we are meant to have a relationship with God.
That is a concept I find harder and harder to accept – what kind of relationship involves one side being silent? I know you referred to the holy spirit but he is hardly tangible and seems to work through fuzzy feelings. I always said God spoke through the bible but sometimes it just doesn’t seem like enough. (I know that sounds foolish / childish).
I am still clinging to faith but wonder for how much longer. For souls like mine I would hope that God could give us just a glimpse of his glory, just a glimpse to give us a reason to cling on. Especially when an eternity of conscious torment is really what we will fall into.
It is not just about wanting to or not wanting to obey / trust God. It is about finding it hard to believe in a silent invisible person who is so hidden from those he loves. Hidden from those who love and want to keep on loving him.
Hi J, thanks for opening up. To answer your question, Are my doubts just a smoke screen for my heart wanting to reject God’s authority? I’m with you; no they are not. I’ve met people like that, sure, but no you are struggling with some real issues, and frankly some very good question. I’m not trying to give pat answers to you, but most of what you mention are things I’ve blogged about. In fact, those types of questions are real passions of mine. Passions to give something other than the pat answers we often get in church, while still staying true to Scripture.
If you want to, I’d encourage you to check them out and see what you think and by all means, interact and I promise to reply to your comments. A good place to find your questions about Genesis:
http://www.atacrossroads.net/category/confusing-parts-of-the-bible/genesis-2/
About seeing God in creation:
http://www.atacrossroads.net/if-you-want-to-see-god-just-open-your-eyes/
http://www.atacrossroads.net/god-didnt-go-anywhere-we-just-paved-over-him/
The Trinity:
http://www.atacrossroads.net/what-does-the-bible-say-about-the-trinity/
Hell:
http://www.atacrossroads.net/?s=hell
And even some books outside of our narrow stream of evangelicalism that have helped me experience God tangibly rather than just know more about him:
http://www.atacrossroads.net/4-books-on-experiencing-god-rather-than-just-knowing-about-him/
I’ll be praying for you brother, I hope some of this is a help and I’m more than happy to interact further if it’s helpful