If there’s a God in heaven…
By Rev. E.B. Holschuh
About 3,000 years ago, God, speaking through the Old Testament prophet Isaiah, said, “These people claim to worship me, but their words are meaningless, and their hearts are somewhere else. Their religion is nothing but human rules and traditions.” God could see that His people no longer knew the meaning of fellowship with Him—they had become deaf and blind to Him. Some 800 years later, God would repeat Himself; In the Gospel of Matthew Jesus quotes the prophet Isaiah nearly word for word. I’m sure that God detects much of the same sentiment in our post-modern, technologically-advanced, follow- the-science existence today—our hearts are somewhere else. It seems tragic, but easy enough, to see our world as one of little more than hungry eyes, cheating hearts, and lying lips.
The late author Andrew Greeley, in his 1996 book Religious Change in America, reports on a survey of religious attitudes which revealed that adults in their 40s during the last decade of the 20th century were the first generation in American history to enter their child-rearing years without a word of Scripture in their minds, a verse of a hymn in their hearts, and a memory of prayer in their homes.
For the first half of my life (I’m 60) I was unchurched. I don’t know that I ever didn’t entirely believe in God, but I do recall a time before my freshman year of high school when He gave me cause for concern. In the summer of 1976 I picked up Elton John’s new double album, Blue Moves, and one particular song got my attention: If There’s a God in Heaven (What’s He Waiting For?).
Well, I was only 14 then, but I agreed with Bernie Taupin (Elton’s lyricist), who wrote: “If there’s a God in heaven, what’s he waiting for? If he can’t hear the children, then he must see the war. But it seems to me that he leads his lambs to the slaughterhouse and not the promised land…” That song led me to briefly contemplate God, me, the world, and our respective places in it—but beyond that, He remained (for the most part) out of sight and out of mind. Two decades would pass before I came to know the meaning of fellowship with God.
It’s so, so easy to look at the societal ills that plague us and wonder if there’s a God in heaven — perhaps, if there is, then we must be suffering at His hand (He’s punishing us) or from His indifference (we have only ourselves to blame for this mess we made of things). It’s certainly not so easy to believe that, if there’s a God in heaven, He has our best interests at heart, that He’s not asleep at the wheel.
As a pastor, I’ve been asked more than once, “How can a good God allow bad things to happen?” In frustration, some people conclude that either God must be the cause of evil or there isn’t any God at all. But evil isn’t God’s doing, it’s ours—in fact, the Bible reveals that God deals with our suffering in three ways: 1) He promises that in the end He will judge all people with justice, and all outstanding penalties will be paid; 2) His resolution of evil and sin is a promise fulfilled in our Savior, Christ Jesus; and 3) He promises that all things (even those things that cause suffering) work together for the good of those who love Him.
Following in the footsteps of Isaiah was another Old Testament prophet, Habakkuk, who begins his book by crying out “O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear? Or cry to you ‘Violence!’and you will not save? Why do you make me see iniquity, and why do you idly look at wrong?”
No human suffering can be understood philosophically or intellectually, but only relationally and spiritually — by trusting our loving God can allow bad things to happen to get our attention. Only through faith can we be assured that He can hear the children and He does see the war. Even when our hearts are somewhere else.
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Pastor E.B. Holschuh serves at Zion Lutheran Church (LCMS) in Alamo. He is a retired Navy Senior Chief and former English and Russian teacher and always looking for new ways to reach people; people can reach him in English or Russian at pastor@zionalamo.org. Check out “Fear or Faith?”, the official podcast of Zion Lutheran Church (episodes in English, Spanish, Russian, and Korean) available on most popular podcast platforms.