If my son doesn’t believe I exist, I'm not pleased. Not because he’s denying me some honor, but because I can provide when no one else can. I can support and guide when no one else will.

And Don’t hear what I’m not saying, I’m not saying that God makes the Christians life devoid of suffering or devoid of hardship, it’s typically quite the opposite, but what I am saying is that God gives the Christian purpose and meaning. Purpose and meaning that extend far beyond the reaches of this life into eternity. He gives us a life of hope that far surpasses any sufferings that cross our paths here and now.

“Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Romans 8:35-39

With God, I do not believe Him displeased due only to some lack of acknowledgment, but rather our denying him is displeasing because it is actually a denial of our own happiness and joy. The height of our existence, our knowledge, our maturity, our joy, our love, our thankfulness, and our humility, is directly tied to our knowledge and intimacy with God in Christ. Apart from this knowledge of God we’re like a flower that never blooms. We could have more, we could be more, but we won’t take it. And this is displeasing to God— because in the Garden of the cosmos, He would have flowers that bloom—not for His sake only, but for the flowers own sake, and for those that might look upon the flower and see the fullness of its beauty in all its glory.