God has no use for fake. Honesty is what He’s after, and honesty is what He wants from you in every stage of the journey. Hating His guts, thinking He’s a monster, deciding He is cruel—these are all very valid places to be. It’s in these pit holes of pain and anger that we really let God have it with both barrels: hurling accusations at Him and throwing out all the pretty platitudes we clung to before. We join Job in saying that the way God runs His game down here isn’t right or fair. He blesses those who do evil while He kicks His loyal friends in the face. He is an Ogre with unstoppable power who gets off on tormenting those who can’t fight back. No, we aren’t going to love that. We can’t. God has wired us to find such a dark image of Him utterly repulsive. We can’t trust or love a God who we honestly don’t believe is good. Sure, we can obey Him out of fear of being punished, but that certainly is a lousy way to live. We weren’t designed to thrive in a state of cowering fear. For us, everything is anchored on confidence in God’s goodness—our peace, our hope, our sense of purpose in life. Once we lose that, we lose everything, and in certain stages of refinement, confidence in God’s goodness is the thing that He rips away from us.

Now we get to that ten dollar question: WHY?! What is the point in God totally destroying our confidence in Him? Why does He morph into some terrifying Monster? Why does He go into death silence mode and refuse to utter one peep of encouragement to us? As usual, the answer is nonsensical: God destroys our trust in Him in order to make it stronger.