May 18, 2009 God Doesn't Owe Us A Thing

Let’s assume that you’re convinced in your mind and heart that God exists. You’ve looked at the data, examined the theories under your mental microscope, and you just can’t get away from it—there is a God, a Creator, an Intelligent Designer, if you will, behind life as we know it. You are now, therefore, stuck.

It’s so painfully simple. If we truly believe that God exists, we must also accept the fact that he can do whatever he wants—he doesn’t need our approval. He doesn’t ask for permission before messing with our stuff. He doesn’t…when you get right down to it…owe us anything. Not a single thing. He’s God. For that reason alone he deserves our obedience. Our worship. Our time. Our bank accounts. Our children. Our thoughts.

He’s GOD. Let that just sink in for a minute.

Simple, I said. Not easy. Give me complex-yet-easy any day. What we have, however, in the whole God-faith arena is simple-but-difficult. We live within a culture where every invention and product is designed to make life less stressful, more self-satisfying. At the same time, our God calls us to follow him in the opposite direction. Counterculture, lay down our lives, suffer, forgive our offenders, praise him when the shit hits the fan. We may complain—we DO complain, and quite loudly at times—but that doesn’t mean we’re any less stuck.

But oh! How anguished, our complaints. How pious, our horror as evil flourishes. When someone we love doesn’t get healed, how we fume. When misunderstood or persecuted, how we pout! Shaking impotent fists at heaven as jobs disappear and marriages disintegrate, we question God’s integrity and fairness. Those are dangerous thoughts, friends, a MRSA infection within the Body of Christ. Take a swab to those words and watch what grows in the Petri dish, a foul stench which at the molecular level mimics Lucifer’s own cry…”I would be god.”

If I were God, no pedophile would molest a child, no war would rage. If I were God, there would be no Aids, no cancer, no homeless. Every baby would be wanted, every worker find a job. If I were God, my son would not be dead.

But I am not God. You are not God. God does exist (it was C. S. Lewis who said it was more important that heaven exists than that any of us reach it)—and he can, absolutely, do whatever he wants. If we’re convinced that God actually has “the whole world in his hands,” we either relinquish the right to explanations and reasons, to receive anything in return… or we meander back and forth between his camp and the world’s, depending on the perceived climate of current circumstances.

We’d have preferred a Calgon Christ to “take me away” from trials and tribulations, God as the ultimate stress-reliever—ignoring biblical passages that warn he’s come to bring a sword. We order bubbles of protection and comfort, and get miffed when he ignores the memo. We’ve grown comfortable with a sliver of God each Sunday. We were raised on Gentle Jesus, Meek and Mild when the reality is a God who is unwavering in his holiness, relentless in his pursuit of us, often inconceivably, unbelievably unfazed by what we want at that particular moment. He never sends out questionnaires to ascertain humankind’s deepest desires. He doesn’t wait for a focus group to voice its opinions. He has no respect for the boundaries we place around people or nations or hearts, nor for the boxes in which we keep trying to put him. He’s God! No matter what happens. Gotta’ love him (we’re commanded) but if you’ve never faced a situation in which you also hate him…wait for it. It’ll come.

We want, so desperately, for it to be about us, but it isn’t. It never will be. Yes, God promises to bless, love, protect, etc. But we cling to his promises like magic formulas, not realizing that earthly eyes aren’t sharp enough for the fine print, the unspoken addendum to every one of them from Genesis to Revelation that says, in effect, “unless I choose otherwise.” We pray “Thy will be done” and then whine when it is.

It’s time we look both heaven and hell squarely in the eye and say, “Give it your best shot—I’m still God’s. Though he slay me, yet will I serve him.” If we don’t praise him and follow him at our point of desperation, then… when the sun comes out and the birds are singing, …our praises may fall on divinely deaf ears.