Wrestling with God. Is He fighting us or holding on to us until the fight has left us still and at peace in His arms?
Let me begin today by saying simply, I don't know and I don't understand. [Deep breath.] There, I've said it. Actually, I say it a whole lot when I'm reading the Bible.
But. What I do know and understand is that God loves us. The seeming disparity between what I don't know and understand and what I do know and understand I'm certain looks like ignorance and blindness to the world, but, to those who know this journey, it is wisdom and sight.
I've wondered...perhaps I shouldn't write about what I don't know. Am I just tying a digital milestone around my neck? Am I leading innocents astray? Again, I don't know. But what I do know is that God loves us (and thankfully that us includes me).
Whatever else you read - questions, doubts, struggles - know this: I am confident in God - His wisdom and justice and love. In the troubling midst of all the wiping out of nations, He saves a prostitute and her family; He honors the widows, fatherless and aliens; He allows us to sin and prepares to send His Son for our salvation. My confidence is in this God. But my mind cannot fathom His. That doesn't bother me intellectually - I'm glad He's bigger than my own mind - but it does cause problems in grasping all that He's done and doing.
And so I begin today by saying I don't know and I don't understand. And, now, on to today's struggle...
There is a often repeated preposition in today's reading that caught my attention and always troubles me - the little word if. Now I typically frown on people who focus on prepositions in the text rather than the person of God. Perhaps I should heed my own advice. But for some reason, this seemingly insignificant word - if - leaped off the page this morning.
"If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully follow all His commands I give you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations on the earth. All these blessings will come upon you and accompany you if you obey the Lord your God...." [Deut. 28:1-2]"If you do not carefully follow all the words of this law, which are written in this book, and do not revere this glorious and awesome name - the Lord your God - the Lord will send fearful plagues on you and your descendants, harsh and prolonged disasters, and severe and lingering illnesses." [Deut. 28:58-59]
Wait one minute. Wait. WHAT IS THIS IF? Lord knows it's actually when, right? He's omniscient and we have the benefit of reading ahead so both He and we know it's not If. They/We do/will fail. That's certain and there is no if. And, He also knows the consequences are so horrible in this reading:
"Because of the suffering that your enemy will inflict on you during the siege, you will eat the fruit of the womb, the flesh of the sons and daughters the Lord your God has given you." [Deut.28:53-57]
I'd go on with the above passage, but it just gets worse.
There is a flaw in our design, a flaw we hold up and celebrate and revile in called "Free Choice." We all want freedom and free choice until our children make a bad choice, right? Then it sort of loses some of its luster and we grieve. I can't find any way around it...the Creator is responsible for that flaw in the design of the created. The all-knowing, all-powerful, all-loving God knew what He was doing and what would happen. For Him, there is no if. Lord knows. In a court of law wouldn't He be charged and found guilty of some sort of negligence for not keeping this Rottweiler of His properly chained and fenced? I've often heard it said that without free choice there is no such thing as love because love by definition must be given freely and not against one's will. That's fine. But is that truth about love worth all of the horrible suffering, suffering of innocents who merely had the misfortune to be born in a poor country or subject to an evil family or government and to suffer and die because of things not of their free choice?
I struggle with suffering in the world in the face of an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-loving God. Lord knows I'm not the only one. I also feel it's extremely presumptuous to even stand up and shake this fist in the face of the Creator of the Universe.
And so...my confidence and sanity rests in this - All of this is only for a little time, a breath, a sigh in the face of eternity. Please forgive me if that sounds cold to those in the midst of such terrible and horrible suffering. But I cling to the brevity of life, the expanse of eternity and the confidence that He knows exactly what He is doing and somehow it really and truly and ultimately is all for us.
I hold God ultimately responsible for everything. But live and read and pray and know, He has a way of turning a story at the last possible instant, He never does quite what you'd do or expect Him to do, and, finally, He did what I could never do. He allowed His Son to suffer something He knew would happen and He had the power to stop.
Did He feel guilt in that moment? How could love restrain Him? Or did love empower Him? Because He loved us more. Amazing.
My post from last year on this date.
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