I don't believe in God anymore

    "I don't believe in God anymore."
    This simple assertion from a young man got my attention. To be frank, it's not the sort of thing that I hear a lot, so it took me a few seconds to gather myself, trying to think how to respond. In those moments I searched his eyes to read what was there. I don't think he had said it to challenge me, or to offend me. Instead, it was a brutally honest confession  from someone who needed to get it off his chest, and saying it to someone who just might take him seriously.
    When, in those moments, brilliance escaped me, I simply asked, "Why is that?" As soon as it left my mouth, I regretted the clumsy question, certain it would put him on the defensive. But he didn't back down, or take offense, "It's because I prayed to God for something to happen. I prayed for it a lot, and it didn't happen. So I don't believe in God anymore."
    For this young man, it was a deal breaker. He had believed in God up until the time that God had failed him, and the deal was now off. It made a lot of sense, really. This thing for which he prayed "a lot" and with apparent sincerity had meant a lot to him. I didn't press him for details, but I don't think it was anything frivolous. In his mind, God had failed him.
    The Bible is full of instances when God acted decisively and obviously, leaving none to doubt that He is the true God. And there are times when we sorely wish that God would so act in our lives: when a loved one is stricken with a terminal illness, when our financial foundation is crumbling around us, when we are racked with constant pain. It would be so much easier to believe in God if, in those moments, God would decisively act.
    The Bible also contains instances when God does not act decisively or obviously, and even some instances when God blatantly does nothing in response to pleas of His people. King David prayed and fasted for days on end in the hopes that his young son would not die. The son died. St. Paul prayed three times that the "thorn in the flesh" afflicting him would be taken from him. God did not.
    Jesus was approached early in the gospel of Mark by a leper who said to Him, "If you would want to, You are able to heal me." This seems to get at the essence of Christian prayer. Jesus, Himself, taught His disciples to pray to their heavenly Father, "Thy will be done." Our prayer is a prayer of trust that God can do that for which we pray. But, as Jesus teaches, our prayers to God must allow for God's will.
    I didn't have an easy answer for the young man. But I pray that he never, really, stops believing in (and praying to) God.