Is God Available?

In the prologue of St. John’s Gospel, from the onset, we encounter that the creation of the world is predicated on the Word of God, and that all things come from God. An important aspect of this prologue, I argue, is the following verse: the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.[1] The significance of St. John identifying God as light is that God provides us with the infinite opportunity to know Him. He never ceases to reveal Himself to us. It is important to know that we are created in light and not darkness. The fact that we bear the image and likeness of God reveals that we are made to naturally know and worship God the Father. The Catechism reminds us of this important fact that the desire for God is written in the human heart, because man is created by God and for God; and God never ceases to draw man to himself.[2]

A visible characteristic of the human condition is the inclination to fret or complain when something does not meet our expectations or go our way. An attitude of impatience, self-centeredness, or worse, a disregard for the person around you, takes over because you are determined to have your desire met or for God to answer and relieve you of your predicament. However, when no immediate relief is in sight, doubt, frustration, anger, or worse, despair may begin to set in.

Henri De Lubac, in his book The Discovery of God, describes man’s search for God as follows,

Let us admit that three-quarters, and perhaps more, of all that man says and thinks of God in his prayer is infected with hypocrisy and superstition, childishness, convention, and routine repetitions. Yet we must be on our guard against contemptuous judgments, because they are the most blinding of all. This enormous wastage must not blind us to the spark of truth that burns in the innermost recesses of the soul. Even when it conceals it from us, it is not always stifled, and from time to time it can be seen glowing and bursting into a pure and upright flame.[3]

De Lubac reveals an important point when our actions are directed toward seeking, understanding, or requesting something from God. We need to avoid the temptation to dominate God by our request to him. Our human tendency, I argue, is to either stifle or to back God into a corner, demanding that he answer our petition. What we tend to exercise or completely ignore is the act of surrender or availability to the will of God, and thus allow our petition or search for him to be free of any unholy impediments.

The journey toward seeking an intimate relationship with God the Father, and confirmed through the Son Jesus Christ, requires an act of humility. Humility, by definition, is the adherence that God is the author of everything good that allows us to turn to Him in prayer. Humility dispels the sin of pride and redirects our thoughts and actions toward God in humble submission and patience. Hence, in our search for God, patience is required when God decides to reveal himself in the manner he decides and chooses. We naively forget that the way we want God to hear us or answer our prayers is not the way He will grant or respond.

The availability of God should come as no surprise to the person who has faith. God is everywhere and anywhere at all times except where sin abounds. This does not mean that he is limited because of someone’s sin; it is because the person raptured by sin has chosen not to engage God, and thus God will not force Himself upon the person who knowingly chooses something else other than God.  Pope Benedict XVI, as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, in his book God and the World, describes the presence of God as follows,

God is present, then, wherever faith and hope and love are, because they, contrary to what happens with sin, constitute the personal space within which we move into the dimensions of God. Thus, God is present in a quite specific sense in every place where something good is happening, a sense that goes beyond his general omnipresence and his comprehension of all being. He may be encountered as a more profound presence wherever we approach those dimensions of existence that most closely correspond to his inner being, namely, those of truth and love, of goodness of any kind.[4]

Cardinal Ratzinger raises an important issue on the relationship between the theological virtues and the presence of God; the importance of faith in God the Father. If, after several appeals to our Lord, there appears to be no response, the intention or petition to God must involve a desire to enter into a relationship with Him. We must be cautious not to categorize God strictly as a dispenser of our requests. This narrow image of Him may lead us, as I mentioned earlier, to control or dominate Him to fulfill our personal requests.  God is always available; our responsibility is to be faithful to Him and listen to Him. The silence of God does not mean he is not present. He waits for our response and fidelity to him first before addressing our request at his time. This means that our responsibility sometimes requires us to journey into the darkness to understand the light of our faith more clearly.

You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.  Unfaithful creatures! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.  Or do you suppose it is in vain that the scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit which he has made to dwell in us”?  But he gives more grace; therefore, it says, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”  Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.  Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you men of double mind.  Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to dejection.  Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

James 4:3-10