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@ Unfiltered Faith
2025-01-02 18:29:07I decided to do a bible study on Romans to get myself back into the Word. Shew. That's a tough place to start for someone who is still working on letting God back in. Right out the gate in Chapter One, there’s a part of it that just doesn’t sit well with me. The more I read, the more I feel like I’m trying to catch my breath, trying to wrap my head around the words Paul wrote. I can't shake the discomfort. I was transported right back into my denial, because I REALLY struggle with the idea of a judgemental God who is supposed to be all-loving.
My Struggle with God's Wrath
Paul writes in Romans 1:18-23 (NLT):
"But God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who suppress the truth by their wickedness. They know the truth about God because he has made it obvious to them. For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God. Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn’t worship him as God or even give him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. As a result, their minds became dark and confused. Claiming to be wise, they instead became utter fools. And instead of worshiping the glorious, ever-living God, they worshiped idols made to look like mere people and birds and animals and reptiles."
The idea that we should just know that God exists stopped me in my tracks. Paul essentially says that all the beauty around us - nature, the stars, the intricacy of life - should be enough to prove God’s existence to us. That’s heavy. It feels like it puts a burden on our hearts, like we should automatically see all this beauty and immediately recognize God behind it. Even the people who have never been exposed to God, heard of him, have any idea of the Christian version of deity. So what about those people who don’t? What about the times when we miss the beauty or don’t see it the way others do?
And the part I struggle with the most: when people don’t “get it” and worship something other than God, whether that’s idols or nature itself, God is angry. Angry that they looked at creation and created something to worship, but it wasn’t Him. And for the longest time, I couldn’t understand why that was such a big deal. Isn’t it understandable? If you see something beautiful, something life-giving, it’s almost instinctual to try to honor it, right? How could God be mad at people for trying to connect to something bigger than themselves, something so beautiful as nature, especially when they didn’t even have all the information?They're doing the best they can with what they know.
Reading the passage really set me back, because, on the surface, it feels so harsh. So unloving. It feels judgmental. It feels like everything I ran away from ten years ago. And it makes me angry. Angry because it feels unfair that God would be upset at people for trying to reach out with the only tools they had, which were their limited human understanding and the beauty they saw in the world.
The “Invisible God” and the Trap of Human Effort
What really gets me is that the text says God is “invisible." That He can’t be seen or fully known through creation alone. And then, instead of understanding people trying to make sense of that mystery, God gets mad. They looked at the trees, the sky, the mountains, and the oceans, and they gave them credit. They worshiped them, as if nature itself was a god. And, yes, we all know it’s not the right thing to do. But how is that any different than what I’ve seen in my own life where I make mistakes out of ignorance? Does that mean I'm unforgivable?
I think about all the times I’ve felt so lost, searching for meaning, searching for God, trying to figure out what all this beauty around me means. I know deep down that I want to connect with something bigger than me. I want to know unconditional love. If I’m being honest, the natural world has often been the closest I’ve come to feeling connected to God. The mountains, the ocean, a sunset: they all make me feel something deeper, like I’m part of something huge. Something sacred.
But then that verse feels like it’s saying that, instead of leading us to God, the beauty of creation is like a trap. We look at it, we marvel at it, but we miss the point if we don’t see God directly in it. And that confuses me. How can I see beauty and not want to give it honor? How can I feel something so deeply connected to the world around me and still not know God in that moment?
Why Does God Seem So Mad?
This is where the struggle really hits for me. When I read about God’s anger, I feel like it’s more than just disappointment. It's like He’s frustrated that we can’t see through creation and understand Him clearly. And honestly, it feels like I’m being blamed for something I didn’t even know was wrong.
It’s like trying to paint a picture without all the right colors and being told it’s wrong, but never having been given the full palette in the first place. I see people looking at the world, trying to make sense of it, and I can’t help but feel for them. I think, I would’ve done the same thing. If I were in their shoes, how could I have known any better?
After wrestling around this (and an SOS call to my mentor), I came to this conclusion: maybe this is why Jesus had to come. Because we couldn’t see God clearly through the world around us. We couldn’t figure it out on our own. So, God sent Himself, in the form of Jesus, to make it clear. Maybe it’s not that God is mad at us for trying to worship creation. Maybe it’s that we’re worshiping the wrong thing because we don’t fully understand that He’s been there all along, wanting to reveal Himself.
Is God’s Wrath Really About Justice or Separation?
When I sit with this discomfort, I have to remember that God’s wrath in the Bible isn’t about vindictiveness or punishment in the way we often think about it. I’ve come to realize that it’s more about separation. A separation from Him, the source of life, when we choose to worship anything else. It’s not about anger in the way temper-tantrum way I'm picturing, but more about a painful reality of what happens when we go down the wrong path.
We’re choosing to look for answers everywhere except for where they really are. God’s heart is breaking because He knows the only way to true peace and understanding is through Him, but we keep missing it. We’re trying to get back to Him in the best way we know how, but we’re stumbling along the wrong path.
Maybe that’s why that passage feels so heavy. It’s not because God wants to shut us out. It’s because He loves us too much to let us stay lost in our search for meaning. Maybe His anger is a form of sorrow, a sorrow over our inability to see the full picture.
Reaching for God, Even When We Can’t See Him
I think the struggle I feel with this passage is a struggle a lot of people face: how to reconcile that spiritual feeling we get buy maybe don't attribute it to God with the judgment of God, and how to believe that God really loves us when we don’t always know how to connect with Him.
But I’m beginning to see that the beauty of creation is a way that God calls us to Himself, even if it doesn’t feel that way at first. When we worship the world, it’s not that we’re doing something inherently wrong. It’s that we’re just missing the point. God’s anger isn’t His rejection of us. It’s an invitation to look deeper, to see beyond the surface and find the love and the truth that’s been there all along.
I don’t have it all figured out. I still wrestle with passages like these, and I doubt I’ll ever truly “get” God. But I’m learning that God’s love isn’t about always understanding everything perfectly. It’s about trusting that He’s bigger than our confusion, bigger than our doubts, and bigger than our struggle to connect.
Maybe the key isn’t to have all the answers. Maybe it’s to keep seeking, even when we feel like we’re in the dark.