Reality?

I was ready to be sought by those who did not ask for me; I was ready to be found by those who did not seek me. I said, “Here I am, here I am,” to a nation that was not called by my name. I spread out my hands all the day to a rebellious people, who walk in a way that is not good, following their own devices.

Isaiah 65:1-2 ESV.

A reader observed that one reason younger people are leaving the church is that they were not taught a Biblical worldview. That is certainly true, but I am afraid the problem has “morphed” in the past forty or so years. First, science taught us that this physical/material world is all there is to reality. But now, we no longer believe there is any reality except the one that I feel to exist. If I feel that I am a male, then I am a male, whatever the inconvenient details of my body might suggest. I need to change those details to conform to reality! If anyone tries to foist their view of reality on you, they are an oppressor, and you must rebel against their false ideas so that you can be free.

In that kind of world, the God question is simply this: do I need some conception of deity in order to have a fulfilling life. Many are saying “No.” My feelings are supreme, and at present, my felt reality does not need a God. The tragedy is this: when the day comes, and it will, when a God is desperately needed to help us deal with the inconvenient details of a world beyond our feelings and desires, there will be no God there. Oh, he will be there alright, holding out his arms to us, but we will not be able to access him because the fact is that faith must be nurtured and grounded through a long, patient walk. It cannot be produced on demand.

The good news is that God has ways of showing himself in the most unlikely ways and places. But we dare not depend on that. “Seek him while he may be found; call upon him while he is near” (Isa 55:6).  He is never nearer than in the morning of our days. Build your faith now – not tomorrow.