Some Downton Abbey fans may have noticed when Dame Maggie Smith quoted from the Church of England hymnal. With Lady Violet’s trademark grandeur, she said, “God works in mysterious ways his wonders to perform.” She quoted it ironically, but the original text is anything but ironic. William Cowper, the 18th-century Englishman who wrote it, suffered from suicidal depression for most of his life. He knew a thing or two about the mysterious and often impenetrable ways of God.
The prophet Isaiah wrote, “Truly thou art a God who hidest thyself ” (Isa. 45:15). This verse has had a lot of attention over the centuries. Throughout Christian history, the question has always been asked: “When terrible things happen, where is God?” This question becomes more urgent and more agonizing when something happens to children. When the news of the massacre at the Newtown, Connecticut, elementary school came through, there wasn’t, or shouldn’t have been, a Christian believer in this country who didn’t ask, “Where was God? Why does God permit these atrocities?”
This is the question that Christian faith must ask. It’s a very shallow faith if it does not ask. Many people have been conditioned not to ask these kinds of questions—as though they were disrespectful, intrusive, or dangerous. Some worry that asking such a question is like opening a door to not believing in God at all. But the people of the Bible do ask, directly and bluntly. The questions are asked over and over again in the Psalms. The wonderful little book of the prophet Habakkuk asks it this way: “Oh Lord, how long shall I cry for help and you will not hear? Why are you silent when the wicked man swallows up the one more righteous than he?” (Hab. 1:2, 13).
