Is God Distant?

With all the suffering and pain in the world, one may begin to question where God’s hand is through all our mess. We have our own human expectations of how an "all-powerful" God should move, unrightfully placing ourselves in an "I know better than God" position, and when He does not move in the way we dictate, it adds to our "evidence" that He is distant (Psalm 73:9-12). A deist view begins to form, where one believes that God still exists but is far off, leaving us to manage ourselves and the reality we have been placed in. This mindset, unfortunately, overlooks the truth found in the cross. Would a distant God choose to take on flesh, enter our world, and willingly be crucified by His own creation, enduring the world’s sufferings upon Himself (Isaiah 53:4-5)?

Some may write off the crucifixion of Jesus Christ as one event from long ago, but this undermines the new bridge, active blood, and line of hope that has been established and accessible to us today, by a God who deeply understands our condition. Remember this: we do not serve a God who is distant, but One who can empathize with our suffering and offers grace, redemption, and salvation to all who turn to Him (Hebrews 4:15).

Acknowledging our Condition

The free will given to us, which was intended for love, goodness, and relationships to be naturally chosen and formed, has been abused by mankind for rebellion against God, opening the door to sin, evil, separation from God, and death (Romans 6:23). With the coming of Jesus admist our rebellion (Romans 5:8), mankind eventually did to God what it always wanted to do: put Him to death. In our darkness, we desire to get rid of God and any utterance of His name so that we can become our own self-governing gods who answer to no one but ourselves, and history has been telling of how this approach has gone (John 3:19-21). People have rejected the cornerstone and desire ownership of a reality they did not lay the foundation for, and the denial of God’s existence does not resolve the problem of evil; it gives people more reason to indulge in it and strips others of meaning and hope. God willingly endured our condition of suffering, staring death in its eyes and walking through its gate, but it is very difficult to keep the source of life in the grave forever (Matthew 28:6). Victory over death and the solution to suffering has come as a Gospel message to be proclaimed to the ends of the earth.

Approaching the Conversation

We must not take an avoidant posture to the world’s suffering, but address it directly with wisdom and understanding. Sickness, disease, natural disasters, evil, and unrighteousness have caused the upright to die young and the wicked to live long. The righteous are persecuted as the wicked amass riches, children starve as the greedy eat in abundance, and violence comes to the undeserving while the criminals roam free. Injustice and pain continue to make their rounds throughout the world.

When you sit next to a mourning family at a funeral, the last thing they want to hear is an attempt at logic when deep emotional pains are present. The emotional depths that accompany suffering will very rarely get a satisfactory answer within the world. Grief often yearns for a real hope, not another coping mechanism, insensitive explanation, or shallow comfort, but a light that can bring true hope to one’s heart again. We turn our attention to the cross once more to gaze upon a beaten, brutalized, humiliated, and pierced man, grieving deeply for His people as He accomplishes a higher mission—salvation for souls. Is God really a stranger to suffering? Is the Holy Spirit not offered to us to remind us of His truths and promises (John 14:26)? Does not the same power that conquered death dwell in us (Romans 8:11)? On the sensitive and familiar topic of human suffering, debating this understanding while dismissing the emotions hidden underneath such questions will ineffectively guide others to God’s truth.