While in Canada one of the books I read was Reaching for the Invisible God by Philip Yancey.  I had read a couple of his other books, including one about prayer, that I thought were very good, so I picked it up when I came across it at McKay’s.  Here are some highlights from this book about the difficulty presented when we seek a relationship with Someone who is invisible.

From the introduction in which one of his readers encouraged his writing saying:

            “So be of good courage, my friend, and let this book be what every religious book is, an imperfect finger pointing with an indeterminable inaccuracy toward Someone we cannot by our pointing make present, but Someone from whom and toward whom we nonetheless feel permission to point, feebly, laughably, tenderly.”

To Whom shall we go?:  “The only thing more difficult that having a relationship with an invisible God is having no such relationship.”

Insights about doubt:  “Why, then, does the church treat doubt as an enemy?...Doubt always coexists with faith, for in the presence of certainty who would need faith at all?...Books such as Job, Ecclesiastes, Psalms, and Lamentations show beyond question that God understands the value of human doubt, amply portraying it in sacred scripture…God appears far less threatened by doubt than does his church.”

The Church and Doubt:  “The church at its best prepares a safe and secure space that belief may one day fill; we need not bring fully formed belief to the door, as a ticket for admission…I learned the opposite of faith is not doubt, but fear…Churches that leave room for mystery, that do not pretend to spell out what God himself has not spelled out, create an environment most conducive to worship.”

On Romans 8:28:  “Things happen, some of them good, some of them bad, many of them beyond our control.  In all these things, I have felt the reliable constant of a God willing to work with me and through me to produce something good.  Faith in such a process will, I’m convinced, always be rewarded, even though the ‘Why?’ questions go unanswered…Jesus poses a different question, ‘To what end?’…Rather than looking backward for explanations, he looked forward for redemptive results.”

Great illustration of God’s work in our lives:  “Consider the plight of a spy operating behind enemy lines, who suddenly loses all contact with friendly forces back in the home country.  Have they abandoned him, cut him off?  If he fully trusts his government, he presumes instead that the communication line has been compromised and contacts have ended for his own protection.  If captured and held hostage in Beirut or Teheran, he will have no evidence that anyone back home cares for him.  A loyal spy, though, will trust that his government is scouring the diplomatic channels, offering rewards to informers, and perhaps launching a clandestine rescue effort.  He believes, against all apparent evidence, that his government values him and his welfare.”   

How to look at our ordinary lives:  "Great victories are won when ordinary people execute their assigned tasks—and a faithful person does not debate each day whether she is in the mood to follow the sergeant’s orders or show up at a boring job.  We exercise faith by responding to the task that lies before us, for we have control only over our actions in the present moment.  I sometimes wish the Gospel writers had included details about Jesus’ life before he turned to ministry.  For most of his adult life he worked as a village carpenter.   Did he ever question the value of the time he was spending on such repetitious tasks?"

How God really works:  “God is shy to intervene.  Considering the many things that must displease him on this planet, God exercises incredible—at times maddening—self-restraint.”

How the Holy Spirit works:  “After an organ transplant, doctors must use anti-rejection drugs to suppress the immune system or else the body will throw off the newly grafted member.  I have come to see the Holy Spirit as something like that agent, a power living inside me that keeps me from throwing off the new identity God has implanted.  My spiritual immune system needs daily reminders that God’s presence belongs within me, and is no foreign object.”

Great Question:  “Did I do anything today that would give God pleasure?  Since God longs to feel delight in me, did I give him such an opportunity?”

He wants to use me!:    “Like a proud parent God seems to take more delight as a spectator of the bumbling achievements of his stripling children than in any self-display of omnipotence…He wants to ‘share power’ with the likes of me, accomplishing his work through people, not despite them.”

God’s absence:  “I have learned to view the times of God’s absence as a kind of absent presence.  If a college student leaves home for school or far a short-term mission project, his parents sense his absence every day.  Yet it does not feel like a void, for it has a shape, the shape of his former presence.  They find reminders of him all through the house, dozens of times a day coming across some token that brings him to mind.  They also have the hope of his return.  That is the kind of absence created by God’s withdrawal.”