When will we ever learn?

I get that people don't want to believe that God is a reality to be dealt with as we go about our day. Such a belief can really be a downer...
My friend has just been diagnosed with cancer...good one, God.
          Some terrorist just killed a innocent child...that's OK with you God, right? Since you didn't do anything about it?
I just cashed my paycheck, and you want me to give how much to freeloaders? Ten percent? I'll do two.

Believing in God can be a real inconvenience to anyone who expects God to make everything better. As Robert Browning noted, "Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for?"   And when God and God's powers do nothing to help us cope or survive, why bother with heaven or even to believe in the first place? Especially if there are no forced social or political constraints to have you believe?

According to many researchers, more and more people are just giving up on trying to fathom life with God. Just eliminate the whole relationship, and get on with your life. I can get by just fine without having to give away money or blame bad luck on some magical karma-thing. And because there are no social or political advantages in the USA to believing in God, people give up on believing. (Unless you want to be President of the USA, that seems to be the only exception...and professional football player, especially in Dallas.) 

Why believe in anything outside of our material reality? Are we all Marxists now?

I get why people don't want to bother believing, thinking, or living with something that seems to have no positive or negative impact upon their day-to-day living. As I sing a liturgy or preach a sermon or give cash so a person can pay her rent, I too wonder about God?

But I wonder why not why God doesn't make an impact on my life, but why would God bother? What about me makes me so special that God, the God who created heaven and earth, the God who dies so I can live, the God who powers life itself--why would that God care about me? What makes me worthy of such consideration?

I believe in God most days not because I have seen evidence of God in my life, but rather because I have not. And quite frankly--what I see most days, I can hardly blame God for looking into some other galaxy for intelligent, compassionate, justice-oriented life. Why does God bother to show up on this planet at all?

May your tables be full and your conversations be true.