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Wrestling with God

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God – Too Good To Be True?

God – Too Good To Be True?

Last updated on: February 15, 2015 at 5:05 pm by Barbara Falconer Newhall

God – Too Good To Be True? 2015-02-15T17:05:17-08:00 Barbara Falconer Newhall

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He “that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain.” And “the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers.” Photo by Barbara Newhall

For most of my adult life I wasn’t so sure about God. That such a thing could exist seemed far-fetched, too good to be true.

But now that I’m firmly located in the second half of my life – okay, okay, the third third of my life (and no, I’m not calling it the last third of my life – I’m not ready to go there – yet) . . . now that I’ve moved along in my life, past the time when I have to make my mark on the world, produce those babies, get them raised to adulthood, achieve some success and glory as a writer, stash away some money for retirement . . . now that the gotta-do part of my life is behind me – I find that God’s existence is right there for all to see.

You can’t miss it. Something is going on out there. Of course it is. It’s common sense. How else could things be?

Isaiah appears to share my sense of the of-courseness of God. Here’s a reading from Hebrew Scripture — Isaiah 40:21-22. It’s one of the passages from the Bible that will be read aloud in many Christian churches this coming Sunday.

Have ye not known? have ye not heard?

hath it not been told you from the beginning?

have ye not understood from the foundations of the earth?

It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth,

and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshopppers;

that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain,

and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in . . .

That passage from Isaiah feels about right to me. But there’s an aspect of the Jewish/Christian/Islamic God that I’m still not so sure about – yet: It’s the immanent, ever-present, caring God, the one “who brings out their host and numbers them, calling them all by name,” as Isaiah goes on to say. The one who answers prayers. The one who, in Mark 1:31, takes Simon’s ailing mother-in-law by the hand and cures her.

Perhaps one day that immanent, caring God, the one who knows our names and numbers the hairs on our heads, will feel as obvious to me as the foundational creator God who upholds the world and keeps things from falling apart. And maybe that will be the same day I’m ready to concede that, indeed, I have reached the last third of my life.

If you’d like to know what Bible passages some of the Christian churches in your neighborhood will be reading this Sunday, here’s the Revised Common Lectionary list:

Isaiah 40:21-31
Psalm 147:1-12, 21c
1 Corinthians 9:16-23
Mark 1:29-39

Read Barbara Falconer Newhall’s riffs on life as an empty nest mom at BarbaraFalconerNewhall.com. Her interfaith book, Wrestling with God: Stories of Doubt and Faith, will be published this season by Patheos Press.

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