DOES GOD HIDE HIMSELF?

DOES GOD HIDE HIMSELF?

(A Reflection on the Philosphy of Religion)

It is a fact that there are things that are so rich that will remain veiled to us all. We call them, “mysteries.” I do believe that the thrill of life is in its mysteries. What really gives chill to life is that we are not certain of something but we still take the risk to believe. As Antoine de Saint-Exupery had written in his book The Little Prince, “The desert is beautiful because somewhere there is a well that is hidden.”

The mystery of God is one of the greatest mysteries if not the greatest mystery in this world. People are perennially searching into the true nature of God, but they always come up incomplete and dissatisfied in the end. In fact, some people turn out be non-believers of God for they cannot verify His existence and just decide to ignore Him in the end.

Because the reality of God is so rich that it surpasses our understanding, we surrender to this great mystery by the act of believing which we call, “faith.” Faith is our ultimate response to the mystery of God. Faith is a gift that we are free to accept or to reject; so it is a fact that some of us believe and some of us do not believe in God’s existence. Because God is not self-evident, for us who believe, there is always a room for doubt in what we believe especially when it seems that God totally hides Himself from us. These are the times when God seems to be so distant or abandoned us in our journey because of our pains, trials, desperations and problems in life. However, these moments of doubt or what we call “unbelief” must serve as our driving force to search for Him more.

To conclude, I ask, “Does God really hide himself from us?” In my own reflection, YES, God seems to hide himself from us. Why? Perhaps, it is for the very reason that we must seek for Him. Because if God were very evident to us, we would only take Him for granted, for to know Him is just as easy as taking a candy from a baby; He would just be then a subject of oblivion. It is really a great challenge for us to search for God and eventually to know Him. To know God is difficult and our lifetime may not be enough to know Him. However, if we truly yearn for Him, we would do our best to search for Him even when the time comes that the worst typhoon would storm our life. To hold on to what we believe, that is, God exists, truly takes a great amount of perseverance, dedication, commitment and sacrifice. We must remember that great things are not so easy to achieve but their rewards are fulfilling in the end, so is in searching for God.