From the Wizard of Oz to the algorithm that drives your social media feed, it’s easy to feel like the system is against you.

The wizard is distant and unapproachable, hiding behind a curtain. The algorithm is invisible, impersonal, and relentlessly evaluating, rewarding, and punishing based on performance.

That way of thinking has a way of bleeding into how we see God.

Even if we wouldn’t say it out loud, many of us quietly assume God is distant, aloof, or at the very least disappointed. Not furious, just perpetually unimpressed. Watching. Waiting. Tapping His foot impatiently.

That assumption doesn’t come out of nowhere either.

As parents, we’re often quicker to correct our kids than to celebrate what they’re doing right. At work, most of us hear far more about our mistakes than our faithfulness. When things are going well, crickets. When something breaks, immediate feedback.

Over time, we start to believe that’s just how authority works.

And eventually, we project that line of thinking onto God.

We begin to treat Him like the man behind the curtain. Uninvolved, emotionally distant, having designed a system that’s stacked against us. Or worse, like an algorithm that feeds our anxieties back to us on repeat. The more we doom-scroll, the more fear, outrage, and disappointment we’re served. Not because anyone cares about us, but because the system has learned what keeps us hooked.

So we assume God must work the same way.

But what if He doesn’t?

What if God isn’t running the world like a cold machine designed to expose your failures?

What if God isn’t disappointed in you?

What if He doesn’t want something from you at all. But instead designed this world, imperfect as it currently is, to move you toward life, growth, and trust?

I totally get why that’s hard to believe.

We look around and see a world that feels like it’s unraveling. Wars. Violence. Injustice. Loss that makes no sense. And then we’re told God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and loving. Those ideas feel hard to hold together.

I think about when my dad taught me how to ride a bike.

We lived on a cul-de-sac with a decent hill. Before ever letting me ride down it, he walked me around the top of the circle again and again, one hand firmly gripping the back of the seat. Round and round we went. Every time I wobbled, he steadied me.

Eventually, he said it was time.

“Are you going to hold on?” I asked.

He told me I had this. That he was right there. What he didn’t say, what I assumed, was that he wouldn’t let go.

We started down the hill. His hand stayed on the seat, but the grip loosened as my balance improved. Then, without me realizing it, he couldn’t keep up anymore.

I was riding on my own.

Halfway down the hill I made the mistake of looking back to check if he was still holding on. When I saw he wasn’t, I panicked. I lost control. I crashed. Scraped knees. Bloody hands.

In that moment, my only thought was that he had let me fall.

But the truth was, he had already done what I needed most.

That fall taught me something I couldn’t have learned any other way: I can’t move forward if I’m constantly looking backward.

God often works like that.

He holds us. He guides us. He steadies us more than we ever realize. And sometimes, without announcing it, He loosens His grip not because He’s absent, but because growth requires trust.

Not because He’s disappointed.
Not because He’s distant.
But because He’s closer than we think.

God isn’t standing behind a curtain. He isn’t an algorithm feeding your fears. He isn’t frustrated with you for not growing faster. He’s not even just running behind you holding the seat.

He’s at work in you and around you, inviting you forward.

And maybe the most freeing question you can ask is this:

How would you live differently if you actually believed God was for you?