Reaching for the Invisible God

Someday I hope to meet Philip Yancey. Not just shake his hand and get his autograph in one of his books, but to sit down and get to know him, for we are kindred spirits. He puts into words so many of the things that I think about and wonder about.

I've started reading his book, Reaching for the Invisible God (2000), and I've been enjoying it just as I've enjoyed so many of his other titles (What's So Amazing About Grace, The Jesus I Never Knew, and Disappointment With God being my 3 favorites).

The book is an attempt to explain what it really means to have a "relationship" with an invisible being. As an evangelical Christian I have heard the phrase "personal relationship with God" so many times, and used it so many times myself, that it can be easy to stop thinking about what exactly it means.

Yancey starts out by talking about how for his entire life he has struggled to "just believe", and that his experiences with Christians have made him suspicious when people talk about God "speaking to them". And yet, Yancey says, he keeps coming back to faith in God because nothing else can satisfy his spiritual thirst any better. Like Peter, he says "where else would I go?".

Such thoughts and feelings ring true with my own experience. Especially in the past couple of years. When I was younger it was easier for me to "just believe", but the past 5 years have shaken that easy belief out of me. I've learned more about the world, the history of (in)humanity of the 20th century, the reality that God often allows incredible evil and suffering, and the reality that many prayers go woefully unanswered.

Such experiences have forced me to try to understand my relationship with God in a different way. Faith is not so easy anymore. But it is where I finally hang my hat. When it all comes down, I hunger for God, and I believe he is real, that he cares for me, and that my life makes sense only when put in the eternal perspective.

My life echoes the prayer of the man in the gospel of Mark who pleads with Jesus, "I do believe. Help me overcome my unbelief!"

Yancey says that faith grows on the skeleton of doubt. Only when we face our doubts head on, and openly speak of our questions about the reality of how God really works (or doesn't work) in our lives will any of us begin to see a vital faith grow.

It is that type of faith that I see God developing in me, and I'm glad He hasn't given up on me yet.