Have you stopped and asked yourself — really asked yourself — what in the world is God up to when everything is going off the rails? Where is He? Why is He silent? Why doesn’t He intervene?

Though this post has been in my backlog for six months (incessantly nagging at me!), it’s even more important and relatable now with the ongoing war in Ukraine. Where is God? He sees exactly what’s happening there and yet He doesn’t seem to be all that concerned.

Biblically, we know He does indeed care for the plight of the innocent and loves peace and absolutely hates unjust wars such as this Russian invasion. Yet He doesn’t seem to be responding to the prayers of literally millions of people lifting up their desperate voices to Him. Millions of innocent men, women, children are suffering and crying out to Him and yet there seems to be little more than…silence.

What is He up to? Where is God when we need Him the most? As CS Lewis once wrote,

“When you are happy, so happy you have no sense of needing Him, so happy that you are tempted to feel His claims upon you as an interruption, if you remember yourself and turn to Him with gratitude and praise, you will be — or so it feels— welcomed with open arms. But go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence.”

Yet He is there. He’s always there — even when it seems like He isn’t. And He’s working — yes, He is working even in His apparent silence in this terrible war.

On the weekend after my grandfather died sixteen years ago (this month, in fact), I was in Chicago and spied a familiar face in the airport terminal; I knew for certain that I had seen this man before, but I couldn’t place him. Since the airline let us choose our own seats, I ended up sitting next to him and introduced myself shortly before take-off. It was Phil Vischer, the creator of “Veggie Tales” and the voice of Bob the Tomato, Mr. Lundt, and several others! We chatted for a short time and I asked for his autograph, as he was (and still is!) the most famous celebrity I’ve met in person (with the exception of Dennis Prager). And while he was polite enough (and even friendly), he seemed tired or even sad and didn’t seem like he was up for much conversation. He ended up sleeping (or reading) most of the way to Denver and then we went separate ways.

A few years later, I read that his company, Big Idea Productions, had been sold about that same time, but it wasn’t until I read Phil’s book last year “Me, Myself and Bob: A True Story About Dreams, God, and Talking Vegetables” did I understand why he seemed like he was exhausted or even discouraged — because he was. His book is about how he had all these big dreams for God and His Kingdom inspired by Walt Disney, and that he wanted to create an animation studio (and even a theme-park) to rival Disneyland/World. The technology had come along at just the right time, God had provided the financing and the right people at the right moment several times, and it seemed like it was His Will to make Big Idea the “Christian Disney” for kids, families, and the country, to help shape our culture and even maybe turn it back to God in some ways.

But then Phil’s dream with Big Idea died — or rather, his dream was killed both by forces outside his control and his own missteps at times. The storm clouds rolled in and didn’t depart. Soon the dominoes quickly began to fall and the company fell apart and was eventually sold off. Big Idea and Veggie Tales went from having incredible, exponential revenue to bankruptcy in a few short years. The Christian Disney was no more. God could have easily intervened many times, but He didn’t.

Much of the book is about Phil Vischer telling the story of Big Idea, its rise and fall, and also even apologizing to his former employees, investors, fanbase, and others. The last few chapters are about his personal “lessons learned”, why Disney worked and Big Idea didn’t, and those other hard lessons that are only learned by failure. That in itself bears repeating: Some lessons are only learned by failure (or at least by hardships and struggles).

In the end, Phil realized that God had allowed that struggle and failure to reach deep into something that was much bigger and much more important to God than Big Idea: his heart and relationship with Him. Was Phil’s dream more important to him than God and his relationship with Him? How could God (and Phil) really know? Easy — by taking that dream away and seeing what remained.

That is the sort of God that our God is: one who would allow the failure of a Christian media company that was impacting millions of lives (especially children!) to reach one man who needed to be reached the most (as well as others). Is the “message” and its distribution as important as the hearts of those who are spreading it? That’s a good question. It seems to me that God is more concerned about our hearts and day-to-day lives than the means and methods and channels of spreading His message.

With that in mind, what else might God be willing to allow to fail — or bring to the verge of failure — in order to reach someone? What extreme, almost-absurd lengths is He willing to go to in order to redirect someone back onto His path for them? You might be surprised. We ALL might be surprised.

Stay tuned for Part 2…