Over the last few months I have been thinking a lot about the hiddenness of God. It is usually one of the main questions that I get from students and skeptics. They say something like “If God wants us to believe in him, then why doesn’t he reveal himself to us?” Now, I have written on this topic before. You can check out my previous blog titled “Why is God so hidden?,” where I talked about the difference between belief “that” and belief “in.” I also looked at how much evidence would be necessary to convince us of God’s existence. However, I want to answer the question in a little different way for this post.

God is hidden because he wants us to look for him.

Now, before you get on me for giving some pat Christian answer, I want you to really think about it and hear me out. I think there is something to think about here. We tend to be people who are really excited about new stuff but then we get bored really easy. I was excited when I bought my first car, but now it is just a normal part of my life. It is rare when I am really thinking about it when I used to. I do remember the day very clearly when my phone notified me that my car had been broken into. I sprinted to the parking lot only to realize that I had hit the panic button in my pocket. The point is that unless something crazy happens, I don’t really think about my car because it has become a normal part of my life.

The same is true for anything that isn’t lost. I could just go down the list. If something isn’t lost, then you have no need to look for it or really even think about it. The moment your cell phone or wallet goes missing, then it begins to consume our thoughts. Panic takes over when we notice something is missing, and it usually remains at some level until the object is found.

I think that the same can be true about God. He reveals himself to us enough so that we should know that he is there. However, he remains hidden so that we will look for him. God doesn’t remain so distant that we never encounter him, but there are always things that we won’t know. This is explained by God being both transcendent and eminent. The bottom line is this. God should be someone who consumes our thoughts all day because we want to discover him. We wouldn’t have a need to seek after him and discover him if he wasn’t hidden.

What do you think?