The Works of God

Paragraph formatting and emphasis in bold are mine:

It is actually a piece of good news that our experience does not have the lasts word, that even in the face of horrific evils, tragedies, temptations, and doubts, the supposedly obvious deliverances of experience can be mistaken; that God may be actually more present in saving mercies when our experience tells us he is most distant and unconcerned.

This is a key point of the theology of the cross: God is most present precisely when he seems most absent.

Again, this isn’t a general speculation, an easy way of accepting the situation despite all evidence to the contrary; rather, it is grounded in the empirical fact of God’s saving work in Christ. Both our questioning of God’s purposes and confidence in them are provoked by empirical reality. The events that prove God’s faithfulness occur on the same plane of history as those that challenge it.

Therefore, it is the empirical events of the cross and resurrection, not of daily events whose meaning is not revealed to us, that demonstrate the reliability of God’s character.

Michael Horton, A Place for Weakness, pp. 55-56.