If we could meet God for a casual chat, I wager we would find him interested in virtually anything. I think we’d find him pretty well read and up on current events. As a matter of fact, because of the huge variety of interests he has, he might appear to some Christians as a rather secular God.
Either God started the world in motion and slipped away to his holy heaven to let it run on its own, or he started it and stayed with it as a player – a participant in his own creation. This is certainly the biblical model and part of the reason why there are three of him. The Father has an eye to and fro on the whole earth with nothing escaping his gaze (2 Chronicles 16:9). The Son walked here once in the flesh and knows what it is like to come from dust and return to it (Genesis 3:19). And the Holy Spirit now indwells our flesh, going where we go, seeing what we see, and hearing what we hear – even praying for us when we cannot find the words for our emotions (Romans 8:26). That all sounds to me like a God who is pretty involved.
If God sees everything, wouldn’t you want to know what he thinks about what he sees? I venture to guess he has an opinion; why don’t we ask him about that? Do we walk out of a movie and wonder what God thought of it? Do we finish a fine meal and wonder if God liked it? Do we read the paper and wonder what God’s take on the news is? Or better yet, do we find him in the news? We need to adopt a way of thinking that puts God within the frame of our daily vision.
John Fischer The Catch 
God, where were you when the little girl was padlocked in a cooler and left to die in there while the adults left in her charge sat in lawn chairs drinking?
God, where were you when Jacee Dugard was being raped night after night by a religious nut?
God, where are you when the innocent are victimized?
God was on a cross, reconciling these very victims to himself through his own bitter death — a death that reaches into time and eternity and forgives perpetrator and victim alike. Christ’s death is not a thing of the past; it is actively reaching across all time and paying the price for everyone. The very horrible acts listed here were laid upon Christ. Where was God when these things happened? He was right there, closer than anyone ever would want to know.
Great answer, John.
Where was God when Judas was stealing out of the money box that Jesus and the Apostles used for their expenses and to help the poor? (John. 12:1-6) Didn’t Jesus know he was stealing? Of course He did. Then why didn’t He do something to stop him?
Why do we think that we are so much wiser than God? Doesn’t God see? Doesn’t God know? Of course He does. Then why doesn’t he do something about these things that we think are so terrible? The same reason He didn’t do anything about Judas: because He has a plan that those things fit into, which we don’t understand.
‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the LORD.” (Isaiah 55:8) We don’t see the big picture; God does. There is a reason for sin: it gives God something to save us from. What would the world be like if there was no evil? It would be a world in which there would be no repentance, no forgiveness, no salvation. It would be a world in which Christ wasn’t needed. Either that, or it would be Heaven. Heaven is coming, but a world full of evil has to come first.
Good words, John.
I hope our thinking that God is involved in everything doesn’t take us down the road of The Shack, minimizing His Holiness and the fear with which we are to view Him. Yes He is our Daddy (aka Abba Father); but that doesn’t mean He’s our “buddy.” His ways are not our ways, nor are His thoughts our thoughts. So whatever God thinks about the movie and the dinner we just had, you can bet it won’t be what we thought. As Henry Blackaby (I think) said (and I paraphrase), “We need to get involved in what God is doing, not ask Him to get involved in what we are doing.” That doesn’t mean He’s not involved in the movie, dinner, etc. What it does mean is that He is not involved in the glorification of Self, which is typically what we ARE involved in. In our world, everything is about us. In His, everything is about Him and His glory. He is glorified when others are served and Self is squashed. We rarely think that way. 🙂
What you’re describing, John, is what I like to call a “faithshaped” life. Too many Christians lead “fateshaped” lives that never look to see the hand of God, or wonder what God thinks or feels about anything (even though He has revealed himself, after all, as rational and emotive). Yet “without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him” (Heb. 11:6). That’s not an impersonal, detached God, and certainly not a God who is so holy that nothing about us really matters. Either I believe that he is involved in my life, or I don’t. Either I’m looking for his hand, seeking his truth and wisdom, asking Him for discernment about things of this world, or I’m not. Through that relational process of “renewing of [my] mind,” rather than being passively “conformed” (fateshaped) to the world I am actively “transformed” (faithshaped) by God’s Spirit so that I can “test and approve what God’s will is” (Rom. 12:1-2). God is involved.
There’s a really good book written by a local newcaster here in the Dallas area. It’s Finding God in the Evening News by Jody Dean. When we look for God where we are, we always find him.
Your piece said so much so succincty. I agree, with joy.