Wondrous by Design

What is a religion worth which costs you nothing? What is a sense of God worth which could be at your disposal, capable of being comfortably elicited when and where you please? It is far, far more God who must hold us, than we who must hold Him. And we get trained in those darkness into that sense of our impotence without which the very presence of God becomes a snare.
FREDERICH VON HUGEL

At certain time in our life we think of our identity and our role in this world. Today I was constructing an identity through the things I had done or has happened to me. Did these things just happen to me or did I do it? What is the role of God in it? Or does he exist at all? Later I began to consider what all I have been through in my life. It didn’t make any sense to me because I was not sure through which perspective I should see it.
Then I began to see it clearly. It came to my mind suddenly that what is more important than answers to these questions is the fact as to why I ask these. Do I really need the answers to the questions or some explanations to justify my actions to a hypothetical friend?
The answer to any question will depend on why you ask the question. Mostly our questions are not questions at all. We’re just cribbing! We ask why such and such thing is happening in our life and not in others life. We think things would have been better if we had done it some other way or we had planned everything before hand. We ask because we don’t have control over things and we want to have control over our life and most of the times others life too.

This not just the case with individual people. It is also true when we consider the human history as a whole. And explains why there are so many ‘alternatives’ in the world—religions, atheism, communism, Epicureanism, capitalalism and so on. These answers were a product of the spirit of the age of its origin.

Bible says ‘you ask and not receive because you ask wrongly to spent it on your desires’. Meaning, God expects us to ask genuine questions. Adam sinned because he didn’t ask God why it was wrong to eat the fruit of the tree. And Job—he challenged God! And he was answered. We ask genuinely when we have insight and wisdom. That should be our actual prayer (...”that love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ.”)
“Ask and you will receive”: God expects us to find out for ourselves that God exist and he will answer our questions.
The underlying meaning in the verse is that we should have the insight to ask with an open mind. We don’t receive when we ask for things that reinforce our identity in the world—that’s true for spiritual gifts and material gifts as well. And when we receive such gifts that we ask with a genuine heart we gain more insight.
People ask whether God exist or not. After sometime they abandon the question and drift into their own way of life, because they can’t find an answer. They don’t find an answer because they don’t expect an answer. They are asking for an explanation. Some find an explanation and believe in God; after sometime because of some life situation they reassess their explanation and on finding that it is unsatisfactory they relapse in their belief. Others float in their belief because of the culture and surface slush. This happens because their question is not genuine. If God were to come to these people and say, “ yes I exist because of so and so reasons” they still will have their own plans for their life. And if God doesn’t answer also they have another set of plans. It is a question through which they can base their life style and identity in this world.
God never explains. He only answers. He sings. He convinces. May be when God answers, you can’t explain it to your hypothetical friend. We can’t digest this fact. We can’t believe that God answers through our life. That the life of those who believe in God is itself an explanation that God exist.
This is faith--the answer to our question (or prayer).

A way to find out whether our question is genuine is to consider when we ask it. Do we ask ‘does God exist when we feel inadequate; when we feel that our identity in the world is jeopardy; when we secretly and uncomfortably feel that there nothing great about us? or when we feel that we don’t have control? Think about it.

If we ask questions or hold it in mind with no other intent than knowing the truth, God will answer. God answers when we start wondering.
As a matter of fact, it is true with any question we ask—whether it is regarding the nature of light or the foreign policy of America or whether God exist.