Will God let you play in the steet when a truck is coming?
I've been happy to see and hear more messages lately about the goodness of God. Although there are still people who preach an angry, distant God, more and more are seeing the real truth of his character.
Paul told Timothy, "Everything God created is good" (1Tim. 4:4). James, the brother of Jesus, told the church, "Every good and perfect thing is coming down from the Father..." (Jms. 1:17). People are starting to get it.
With this change I'm hearing a little less direct blaming of God for things. You know: "God made me / my child / my spouse / my neighbor sick to make them a better person." It seems folks are moving away from this kind of twisted picture.
But then someone dies - a mother, a child, a veteran, a police officer, a sinner, a saint. Someone dies, and the platitudes start oozing out of the back rooms in which they were hidden after all.
"We don't know why God lets these things happen, but we know he has a plan." "Remember God doesn't give us more than we can bear." "God allows these things for a reason."
Ummmm...
We need to take another look at our theology. We've decided God's a good Father, so he isn't going to make his children sick. We can relate to that - we wouldn't make our kids sick, either. (We're the ones who'd have to stay home with them, after all!)
So how do we go from understanding that to saying, "Well, but sometimes God allows certain stuff to happen..."?
Are you saying you wouldn't make your child sick, but you'd allow him to drink bleach, or stay overnight with a friend who has viral pneumonia, or play in the street when a truck is coming?
It sounds so spiritual, but it's not. It's just another sign of our poor knowledge of God.
God isn't making people sick and killing them; nor is he standing back "allowing" people to get sick and die.
God gave his people a mandate centuries ago to seek him, follow him, and obey his ways. He warned them that if they failed in that, they'd fall out from under his protection and bad stuff would happen. (See Deuteronomy 28).
We are living with the consequences of being part of a worldwide body with hundreds and thousands of years of failing to follow God's ways. Even if your family or congregation has it right, it's just a toe or finger on the bigger body that's staggering around refusing to be properly joined to its Head.
Just like you can't force your adult children to follow guidelines you established to protect them, neither does God force his.
But he is sending apostles, pastors, teachers, songwriters, authors, and artists to his children saying, "Wake up! Come back under the protection of my ways and my love." And each time someone gets the revelation of his goodness, the stronger and more unified the body becomes, and the more protection he is able to stretch out over his children.
So things will continue to get better. But will tragedy still sometimes happen? Yes. Even to "good people"? Yes.
But now you've seen the truth. And the next time you're with someone who's grieving, instead of talking about God like a delinquent Father, take the responsibility to speak words of life and pull them under the covering with you.
Paul told Timothy, "Everything God created is good" (1Tim. 4:4). James, the brother of Jesus, told the church, "Every good and perfect thing is coming down from the Father..." (Jms. 1:17). People are starting to get it.
With this change I'm hearing a little less direct blaming of God for things. You know: "God made me / my child / my spouse / my neighbor sick to make them a better person." It seems folks are moving away from this kind of twisted picture.
But then someone dies - a mother, a child, a veteran, a police officer, a sinner, a saint. Someone dies, and the platitudes start oozing out of the back rooms in which they were hidden after all.
"We don't know why God lets these things happen, but we know he has a plan." "Remember God doesn't give us more than we can bear." "God allows these things for a reason."
Ummmm...
We need to take another look at our theology. We've decided God's a good Father, so he isn't going to make his children sick. We can relate to that - we wouldn't make our kids sick, either. (We're the ones who'd have to stay home with them, after all!)
So how do we go from understanding that to saying, "Well, but sometimes God allows certain stuff to happen..."?
Are you saying you wouldn't make your child sick, but you'd allow him to drink bleach, or stay overnight with a friend who has viral pneumonia, or play in the street when a truck is coming?
It sounds so spiritual, but it's not. It's just another sign of our poor knowledge of God.
God isn't making people sick and killing them; nor is he standing back "allowing" people to get sick and die.
God gave his people a mandate centuries ago to seek him, follow him, and obey his ways. He warned them that if they failed in that, they'd fall out from under his protection and bad stuff would happen. (See Deuteronomy 28).
We are living with the consequences of being part of a worldwide body with hundreds and thousands of years of failing to follow God's ways. Even if your family or congregation has it right, it's just a toe or finger on the bigger body that's staggering around refusing to be properly joined to its Head.
Just like you can't force your adult children to follow guidelines you established to protect them, neither does God force his.
But he is sending apostles, pastors, teachers, songwriters, authors, and artists to his children saying, "Wake up! Come back under the protection of my ways and my love." And each time someone gets the revelation of his goodness, the stronger and more unified the body becomes, and the more protection he is able to stretch out over his children.
So things will continue to get better. But will tragedy still sometimes happen? Yes. Even to "good people"? Yes.
But now you've seen the truth. And the next time you're with someone who's grieving, instead of talking about God like a delinquent Father, take the responsibility to speak words of life and pull them under the covering with you.
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