The Hiddeness of God

I have always wanted to do a spiritual journal. This morning, I read Nouwen’s The Road to Daybreak: A Spiritual Journey once again and am refreshingly impressed with his spirituality. His call to leave Harvard to serve the intellectually challenged at L’Arche in Toronto is most inspiring, no matter now many times I read it. I am also inspired to start writing my spiritual journal. I will have to trust God’s grace to write it everyday!

Right now, like Nouwen, I am also struggling with my own sense of call. I had thought that Talent Plus is the right place to complete my multi-vocational life – lawyer, pastor, academic and now managing director. But having been in this company now for almost exactly 2 years, and having spent more than 18 months in the corporate offices and having seen a lot from the inside, I am now not sure if this culture is a good fit for me. I am also getting more and more into the ministry- in Gereja Grace Batu Pahat as well as the Bible Society. Somehow the joy of ministry seems to be real again. Strange as it may sound, I am actually looking forward to the weekend ministry, even after a long week of work. I have told the folks in Batu Pahat that I can only minister to them in my weakness and am depending on God’s strength to serve them on weekends, having to drive almost three hours each way. And yet, the Lord is giving me the strength so far. It is a miracle that I am infused with this energy. I am reminded afresh the promise of God in Isaiah 40:28-31.〝He gives strength to the weary…〞

Perhaps God is leading me back to complete my life in ministry again. Perhaps it is time for me to wind down my〝bread-and-butter〞business and give more time to the ministry. I am struggling with this and hence I can appreciate a little of what Nouwen is talking about in his journal. He speaks of his〝increasing inner darkness,〞and wondering〝What good it is to preach the Gospel to others while losing your own soul?〞I think I can identify with his inner struggles.

How I wish God could speak to me more clearly. But there is something about the〝hiddeness of God〞that I need to grapple with. It is not a popular thing with Protestant theology because we believe that God has revealed Himself already in Christ Jesus (John 1:8). So He has. But nonetheless, God is often hidden in silence when we need to hear His call. He is hidden from us in pain as when Hazel was taken home within a week of her suffering from aneurism in the prime of her life. Eric, her widowed husband, and her three children, were with us for dinner last week. Her youngest, Zoe, is only 10. Eric quietly asked,〝How can good come out of Hazel’s untimely death?〞 I cannot think of a more poignant way to articulate the hiddeness of God.