"If God really wants me to believe in him he should show himself" - Clever excuse but if you were really looking you'd never have to say it.
It is impossible to examine something without in some way changing the thing that’s examined. Its also impossible to go looking for God without him noticing you doing it.
So it’s reasonable to assume those who complain that God isn’t making himself obvious would probably not notice his presence even if he were to jump out in front of them with lightning bolts in his hands, which is the way people think he’d do it, since that’s probably the way they would do it if they were God. Thank God they’re not.
Many, including well meaning Christians, think it’s possible for huge numbers of people, especially those in ‘non-christian’ countries to go through life without ever feeling they aught to be looking for God. However the Bible in passages like Romans 1:18ff and Acts 17:14-34 suggest that they are not nearly as innocent in their ignorance as we, looking from the outside, might imagine.
People who demand that God submit himself to forensic examination are generally looking for a God they can manage—one who will fulfil their expectations without in any way making demands on them. It’s not God they want but a supernatural office boy to run their errands for them.
The Bible, which was given to reveal things we could never work out for ourselves, is our only reliable source on the subject of God’s approachability. It clearly says that he is not playing hard to get. Isaiah says we have a God who’s arms are always open to receive the sincere pilgrim.
Paul told the pagans at Athens this same thing and went on to say that even the allocated time and place of their lives was determined by God with the hope that they would make the best of the opportunity that life affords, to reach up and find him. If God truly loves us we have to assume, on the basis of what he has said about his desire to save all men, that the time and place of one’s existence on earth is optimal for finding our creator.
It is one of the great human delusions to believe that we have the power to read the mind of others when we don’t even understand ourselves. God who knows all hearts, tells us that man is without excuse, so none of us are in a position to disagree.
Ironically it’s the visible God who would be most impossible to find, unless you were in the right place at the right time. Such a God could not see us—at least he could not see all of us - that kind of God really could be oblivious to your attempts at finding him. This is the problem Jesus was addressing when he said that the Holy Spirit would not come unless he went back to the Father - his visibility is an obstacle rather than a help to our belief.
The invisible God is free to communicate with genuine multi-media messages. We are confronted every moment of our lives with promptings to our physical and spiritual senses that should make us seek ’glory honour and immortality’. If most people fail to respond sensibly to these messages it is not God’s fault.
Jesus proved all this by becoming visible and revealing his power whilst on earth to give ‘many convincing proofs’, but John summed up man’s response by saying ’men preferred darkness because their deeds were evil’.
In any case, real concern for the lost will not be expressed in agreeing with man’s excuses for disbelief , but in sharing the Gospel to help them change their mind. Seeking to alleviate the problem is far more productive than complaining about it.
