Sunday night, after a long day, we sang together: “Then I will tell all men of Your salvation.” I love that line because it’s a promise. We’re committed to speaking about the hope God has given us. Scripture says to stay “prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason” for that hope (1 Pet. 3:15). The word “apologetics” comes from the Greek word here for “make a defense.” We don’t just want to win an argument; we want to remove the stumbling block from someone searching. Some have hardened too much for any logical argument to move them. But others are just stuck. When they ask you about “the hope within you” (1 Pet. 3:15), are you ready to give an answer — and help them move those stumbling blocks in their way?

The Problem of Evil

If God is good, why is there so much suffering? Atheist philosophers have framed this as a triangle, arguing that God’s goodness, God’s power, and evil can’t all be true. But thinkers like Alvin Plantinga have shown that free will changes everything.

God values our ability to choose more than he values sparing us pain. Genuine love can’t be coerced. Robots can’t love; only free beings can give their trust and loyalty. So God allowed a world where people could choose hatred instead of love, lies instead of truth. And those choices bring pain.

C.S. Lewis wrestled deeply with this question. As an atheist, the cruelty of the world pushed him away from God. But then he realized that even to call the world unjust, he needed a standard of justice. He said, “A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line.” His reason for disbelief demanded God’s existence.

God values our ability to choose more than he values sparing us pain.

Christianity acknowledges that pain is real — but not meaningless. After a life full of betrayal and disappointment, Joseph told his brothers, “You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good” (Gen. 50:20). When Paul considered all his suffering, he said our “light momentary troubles” can’t compare with the eternal glory to come each trial prepares us for (2 Cor. 4:17).

Imagine a seesaw with an elephant on one side and an ant on the other. Eternity is the elephant; your suffering now is the ant. The scale isn’t even close. That doesn’t minimize your pain — God never minimizes it. He entered it when Jesus became a human and suffered for us! God could’ve stayed distant, but instead, he came to bear our sins and sorrows (Isa. 53:4).

The “Hiddenness” Question

Why is God hidden? Why doesn’t he make himself so clearly known that we can’t avoid believing in him? God gives us enough to make belief reasonable but not irresistible. Rather than downloading the truth about him into our brains, he wants us to decide to place faith in him.

If you want to know God, you can, but he won’t force you.

Remember how Jesus described his parables (Mark 4:10-12)? He doesn’t spoon-feed us moral fables with neat and easy lessons. They’re riddles that make you wrestle, ponder, and seek. Because in the seeking, God can transform us.

Pascal put it this way: “There is enough light for those who desire only to see, and enough obscurity for those who have a contrary disposition.” If you want to know God, you can, but he won’t force you.

When my kids were toddlers learning to walk, I’d step back, hold out my hands, and invite them to come to me. I wasn’t abandoning them — I was encouraging them to take the steps they needed to take to become who they needed to become. God’s hiddenness is like that. It isn’t absence. It’s an invitation to grow, to walk toward Him.

Faith and Science

Finally, a lot of people ask whether science has explained away the need for God. The founders of modern science — Newton, Kepler, Faraday — believed the opposite. These scientists believed creation was orderly because it had a rational, loving creator — “a God of order” (1 Cor. 14:33. Astronomer Johannes Kepler said science was “thinking God’s thoughts after him,” which makes studying his works an act of worship and devotion.

Every scientific discovery points us deeper into wonder.

The scientist John Polkinghorne once said, “Science shows us a world that is deeply rational. Theology shows us a world that is deeply meaningful. The two belong together.” Science tells us how, but faith tells us why.

At times, there will be tensions between science and Scripture as we refine our understanding of both. Galileo is a classic example, when flawed Bible interpretation led some to think heliocentrism was heresy. But the problem wasn’t with Scripture or science — it was with human misunderstanding. When rightly understood, God’s word and God’s world will always agree. So we keep seeking the truth in both expressions of his goodness and wisdom (Ps. 19:1-14). Every scientific discovery points us deeper into wonder.

God isn’t hiding; he offers us an invitation to faith.

A leadership coach I know talks about “the nail in your foot.” Sometimes you’re stuck in resentment, bitterness, or unbelief — and you can’t move forward because that nail is pinning you down. You scoot around in circles, stuck in place by whatever holds you back. The problem of evil, the hiddenness of God, and the tension with science can all feel like nails in the foot. All we can do for each other is name the nail and explain how to remove it. When we take a careful look at the problems, we see answers that can help us make sense of life. We see God clearly the more we study science. In him, we find hope in suffering, knowing he catches every tear (Ps. 56:8). And in the cross, Jesus took our suffering and bore our sorrows. God’s presence in the world might not be as obvious as you’d like, but if you look closely, you’ll find his invitation to faith.