From Gary... Number two

 

I remember when I was about 10 or 11, my big treat was going to Lansingburg to a store which sold comic books. My favorite was anything to do with Superman; HE was my HERO!!! Heroes are hard to find today (apart from the military, police and first-aiders). Often, even some of them let you down. If you think about the people listed in the picture, you will recognize them as GODLY HEROES. Jesus would obviously be first on any list, but who would be in second place? My choice is the author of the following...

 

1 Timothy, Chapter 1 (WEB)

14 The grace of our Lord abounded exceedingly with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.  15 The saying is faithful and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief. 16 However, for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first, Jesus Christ might display all his patience, for an example of those who were going to believe in him for eternal life.  17 Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, to God who alone is wise, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.

Paul is my second favorite. Why? Verses 15 and 16 are why!!!  He realized his privileged condition of salvation was because of what Jesus did and nothing of his own merit.  I guess Paul's humility impresses me the most!! Who is your number two?

From Gary.... Bible Reading July 30

Bible Reading  

July 30

The World English Bible

July 30

2 Chronicles 22-24

2Ch 22:1 The inhabitants of Jerusalem made Ahaziah his youngest son king in his place; for the band of men who came with the Arabians to the camp had slain all the eldest. So Ahaziah the son of Jehoram king of Judah reigned.

2Ch 22:2 Forty-two years old was Ahaziah when he began to reign; and he reigned one year in Jerusalem: and his mother's name was Athaliah the daughter of Omri.

2Ch 22:3 He also walked in the ways of the house of Ahab; for his mother was his counselor to do wickedly.

2Ch 22:4 He did that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh, as did the house of Ahab; for they were his counselors after the death of his father, to his destruction.

2Ch 22:5 He walked also after their counsel, and went with Jehoram the son of Ahab king of Israel to war against Hazael king of Syria at Ramoth Gilead: and the Syrians wounded Joram.

2Ch 22:6 He returned to be healed in Jezreel of the wounds which they had given him at Ramah, when he fought against Hazael king of Syria. Azariah the son of Jehoram king of Judah went down to see Jehoram the son of Ahab in Jezreel, because he was sick.

2Ch 22:7 Now the destruction of Ahaziah was of God, in that he went to Joram: for when he was come, he went out with Jehoram against Jehu the son of Nimshi, whom Yahweh had anointed to cut off the house of Ahab.

2Ch 22:8 It happened, when Jehu was executing judgment on the house of Ahab, that he found the princes of Judah, and the sons of the brothers of Ahaziah, ministering to Ahaziah, and killed them.

2Ch 22:9 He sought Ahaziah, and they caught him (now he was hiding in Samaria), and they brought him to Jehu, and killed him; and they buried him, for they said, He is the son of Jehoshaphat, who sought Yahweh with all his heart. The house of Ahaziah had no power to hold the kingdom.

2Ch 22:10 Now when Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead, she arose and destroyed all the royal seed of the house of Judah.

2Ch 22:11 But Jehoshabeath, the daughter of the king, took Joash the son of Ahaziah, and stole him away from among the king's sons who were slain, and put him and his nurse in the bedchamber. So Jehoshabeath, the daughter of king Jehoram, the wife of Jehoiada the priest (for she was the sister of Ahaziah), hid him from Athaliah, so that she didn't kill him.

2Ch 22:12 He was with them hid in the house of God six years: and Athaliah reigned over the land.

2Ch 23:1 In the seventh year Jehoiada strengthened himself, and took the captains of hundreds, Azariah the son of Jeroham, and Ishmael the son of Jehohanan, and Azariah the son of Obed, and Maaseiah the son of Adaiah, and Elishaphat the son of Zichri, into covenant with him.

2Ch 23:2 They went about in Judah, and gathered the Levites out of all the cities of Judah, and the heads of fathers' houses of Israel, and they came to Jerusalem.

2Ch 23:3 All the assembly made a covenant with the king in the house of God. He said to them, Behold, the king's son shall reign, as Yahweh has spoken concerning the sons of David.

2Ch 23:4 This is the thing that you shall do: a third part of you, who come in on the Sabbath, of the priests and of the Levites, shall be porters of the thresholds;

2Ch 23:5 and a third part shall be at the king's house; and a third part at the gate of the foundation: and all the people shall be in the courts of the house of Yahweh.

2Ch 23:6 But let none come into the house of Yahweh, save the priests, and those who minister of the Levites; they shall come in, for they are holy: but all the people shall keep the instruction of Yahweh.

2Ch 23:7 The Levites shall surround the king, every man with his weapons in his hand; and whoever comes into the house, let him be slain: and be with the king when he comes in, and when he goes out.

2Ch 23:8 So the Levites and all Judah did according to all that Jehoiada the priest commanded: and they took every man his men, those who were to come in on the Sabbath; with those who were to go out on the Sabbath; for Jehoiada the priest didn't dismiss the shift.

2Ch 23:9 Jehoiada the priest delivered to the captains of hundreds the spears, and bucklers, and shields, that had been king David's, which were in the house of God.

2Ch 23:10 He set all the people, every man with his weapon in his hand, from the right side of the house to the left side of the house, along by the altar and the house, around the king.

2Ch 23:11 Then they brought out the king's son, and put the crown on him, and gave him the testimony, and made him king: and Jehoiada and his sons anointed him; and they said, Long live the king.

2Ch 23:12 When Athaliah heard the noise of the people running and praising the king, she came to the people into the house of Yahweh:

2Ch 23:13 and she looked, and, behold, the king stood by his pillar at the entrance, and the captains and the trumpets by the king; and all the people of the land rejoiced, and blew trumpets; the singers also played on instruments of music, and led the singing of praise. Then Athaliah tore her clothes, and said, Treason! treason!

2Ch 23:14 Jehoiada the priest brought out the captains of hundreds who were set over the army, and said to them, Have her forth between the ranks; and whoever follows her, let him be slain with the sword: for the priest said, Don't kill her in the house of Yahweh.

2Ch 23:15 So they made way for her; and she went to the entrance of the horse gate to the king's house: and they killed her there.

2Ch 23:16 Jehoiada made a covenant between himself, and all the people, and the king, that they should be Yahweh's people.

2Ch 23:17 All the people went to the house of Baal, and broke it down, and broke his altars and his images in pieces, and killed Mattan the priest of Baal before the altars.

2Ch 23:18 Jehoiada appointed the officers of the house of Yahweh under the hand of the priests the Levites, whom David had distributed in the house of Yahweh, to offer the burnt offerings of Yahweh, as it is written in the law of Moses, with rejoicing and with singing, according to the order of David.

2Ch 23:19 He set the porters at the gates of the house of Yahweh, that no one who was unclean in anything should enter in.

2Ch 23:20 He took the captains of hundreds, and the nobles, and the governors of the people, and all the people of the land, and brought down the king from the house of Yahweh: and they came through the upper gate to the king's house, and set the king on the throne of the kingdom.

2Ch 23:21 So all the people of the land rejoiced, and the city was quiet. Athaliah they had slain with the sword.

2Ch 24:1 Joash was seven years old when he began to reign; and he reigned forty years in Jerusalem: and his mother's name was Zibiah, of Beersheba.

2Ch 24:2 Joash did that which was right in the eyes of Yahweh all the days of Jehoiada the priest.

2Ch 24:3 Jehoiada took for him two wives; and he became the father of sons and daughters.

2Ch 24:4 It happened after this, that Joash was minded to restore the house of Yahweh.

2Ch 24:5 He gathered together the priests and the Levites, and said to them, Go out to the cities of Judah, and gather of all Israel money to repair the house of your God from year to year; and see that you hasten the matter. However the Levites didn't hurry.

2Ch 24:6 The king called for Jehoiada the chief, and said to him, Why haven't you required of the Levites to bring in out of Judah and out of Jerusalem the tax of Moses the servant of Yahweh, and of the assembly of Israel, for the tent of the testimony?

2Ch 24:7 For the sons of Athaliah, that wicked woman, had broken up the house of God; and also all the dedicated things of the house of Yahweh did they bestow on the Baals.

2Ch 24:8 So the king commanded, and they made a chest, and set it outside at the gate of the house of Yahweh.

2Ch 24:9 They made a proclamation through Judah and Jerusalem, to bring in for Yahweh the tax that Moses the servant of God laid on Israel in the wilderness.

2Ch 24:10 All the princes and all the people rejoiced, and brought in, and cast into the chest, until they had made an end.

2Ch 24:11 It was so, that whenever the chest was brought to the king's officers by the hand of the Levites, and when they saw that there was much money, the king's scribe and the chief priest's officer came and emptied the chest, and took it, and carried it to its place again. Thus they did day by day, and gathered money in abundance.

2Ch 24:12 The king and Jehoiada gave it to such as did the work of the service of the house of Yahweh; and they hired masons and carpenters to restore the house of Yahweh, and also such as worked iron and brass to repair the house of Yahweh.

2Ch 24:13 So the workmen worked, and the work of repairing went forward in their hands, and they set up the house of God in its state, and strengthened it.

2Ch 24:14 When they had made an end, they brought the rest of the money before the king and Jehoiada, of which were made vessels for the house of Yahweh, even vessels with which to minister and to offer, and spoons, and vessels of gold and silver. They offered burnt offerings in the house of Yahweh continually all the days of Jehoiada.

2Ch 24:15 But Jehoiada grew old and was full of days, and he died; one hundred thirty years old was he when he died.

2Ch 24:16 They buried him in the city of David among the kings, because he had done good in Israel, and toward God and his house.

2Ch 24:17 Now after the death of Jehoiada came the princes of Judah, and made obeisance to the king. Then the king listened to them.

2Ch 24:18 They forsook the house of Yahweh, the God of their fathers, and served the Asherim and the idols: and wrath came on Judah and Jerusalem for this their guiltiness.

2Ch 24:19 Yet he sent prophets to them, to bring them again to Yahweh; and they testified against them: but they would not give ear.

2Ch 24:20 The Spirit of God came on Zechariah the son of Jehoiada the priest; and he stood above the people, and said to them, Thus says God, Why do you disobey the commandments of Yahweh, so that you can't prosper? because you have forsaken Yahweh, he has also forsaken you.

2Ch 24:21 They conspired against him, and stoned him with stones at the commandment of the king in the court of the house of Yahweh.

2Ch 24:22 Thus Joash the king didn't remember the kindness which Jehoiada his father had done to him, but killed his son. When he died, he said, Yahweh look on it, and require it.

2Ch 24:23 It happened at the end of the year, that the army of the Syrians came up against him: and they came to Judah and Jerusalem, and destroyed all the princes of the people from among the people, and sent all the spoil of them to the king of Damascus.

2Ch 24:24 For the army of the Syrians came with a small company of men; and Yahweh delivered a very great army into their hand, because they had forsaken Yahweh, the God of their fathers. So they executed judgment on Joash.

2Ch 24:25 When they were departed for him (for they left him very sick), his own servants conspired against him for the blood of the sons of Jehoiada the priest, and killed him on his bed, and he died; and they buried him in the city of David, but they didn't bury him in the tombs of the kings.

2Ch 24:26 These are those who conspired against him: Zabad the son of Shimeath the Ammonitess, and Jehozabad the son of Shimrith the Moabitess.

2Ch 24:27 Now concerning his sons, and the greatness of the burdens laid on him, and the rebuilding of the house of God, behold, they are written in the commentary of the book of the kings. Amaziah his son reigned in his place.

 

Jul. 30, 31

Acts 18

Act 18:1 After these things Paul departed from Athens, and came to Corinth.

Act 18:2 He found a certain Jew named Aquila, a man of Pontus by race, who had recently come from Italy, with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to depart from Rome. He came to them,

Act 18:3 and because he practiced the same trade, he lived with them and worked, for by trade they were tent makers.

Act 18:4 He reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath, and persuaded Jews and Greeks.

Act 18:5 But when Silas and Timothy came down from Macedonia, Paul was compelled by the Spirit, testifying to the Jews that Jesus was the Christ.

Act 18:6 When they opposed him and blasphemed, he shook out his clothing and said to them, "Your blood be on your own heads! I am clean. From now on, I will go to the Gentiles!"

Act 18:7 He departed there, and went into the house of a certain man named Justus, one who worshiped God, whose house was next door to the synagogue.

Act 18:8 Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, believed in the Lord with all his house. Many of the Corinthians, when they heard, believed and were baptized.

Act 18:9 The Lord said to Paul in the night by a vision, "Don't be afraid, but speak and don't be silent;

Act 18:10 for I am with you, and no one will attack you to harm you, for I have many people in this city."

Act 18:11 He lived there a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them.

Act 18:12 But when Gallio was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews with one accord rose up against Paul and brought him before the judgment seat,

Act 18:13 saying, "This man persuades men to worship God contrary to the law."

Act 18:14 But when Paul was about to open his mouth, Gallio said to the Jews, "If indeed it were a matter of wrong or of wicked crime, you Jews, it would be reasonable that I should bear with you;

Act 18:15 but if they are questions about words and names and your own law, look to it yourselves. For I don't want to be a judge of these matters."

Act 18:16 He drove them from the judgment seat.

Act 18:17 Then all the Greeks laid hold on Sosthenes, the ruler of the synagogue, and beat him before the judgment seat. Gallio didn't care about any of these things.

Act 18:18 Paul, having stayed after this many more days, took his leave of the brothers, and sailed from there for Syria, together with Priscilla and Aquila. He shaved his head in Cenchreae, for he had a vow.

Act 18:19 He came to Ephesus, and he left them there; but he himself entered into the synagogue, and reasoned with the Jews.

Act 18:20 When they asked him to stay with them a longer time, he declined;

Act 18:21 but taking his leave of them, and saying, "I must by all means keep this coming feast in Jerusalem, but I will return again to you if God wills," he set sail from Ephesus.

Act 18:22 When he had landed at Caesarea, he went up and greeted the assembly, and went down to Antioch.

Act 18:23 Having spent some time there, he departed, and went through the region of Galatia, and Phrygia, in order, establishing all the disciples.

Act 18:24 Now a certain Jew named Apollos, an Alexandrian by race, an eloquent man, came to Ephesus. He was mighty in the Scriptures.

Act 18:25 This man had been instructed in the way of the Lord; and being fervent in spirit, he spoke and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus, although he knew only the baptism of John.

Act 18:26 He began to speak boldly in the synagogue. But when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside, and explained to him the way of God more accurately.

Act 18:27 When he had determined to pass over into Achaia, the brothers encouraged him, and wrote to the disciples to receive him. When he had come, he greatly helped those who had believed through grace;

Act 18:28 for he powerfully refuted the Jews, publicly showing by the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ.

From Jim McGuiggan... SUFFERING REVISITED

SUFFERING REVISITED

No “cure” here!

As sure as it’s true that the only real cure for death is resurrection the only real cure for all our ills is the actual curing of all our ills. Sermons, booklets, books, inspirational classes and seminars, profound challenges from cheerful people who are themselves great sufferers—these sometimes do and often don’t really “help”. Whether they do or don’t help, the sufferer is still left with the blood cancer or the crazed and brutal government or the beloved but dead child that they now sob over. The worker who’s just been “let go” and will now lose the family home and doesn’t know what he, his wife and three children are going to do, the helpless girls forced into prostitution by thugs without feeling or conscience, the desperate families of drug addicts—they’d rather be without the tragedy as have a truth to help them live with it; they want the loss avoided and the pain to stop!

All the “prayer warriors” in the world don’t make a bit of difference to the concrete situations of multiplied millions. Despite all the prayers and the longing, the sobs and the begging, marriages fall apart or continue to be relationships of abuse, infants live in agony for mere days before expiring, aged men and women live for years tormented and oppressed by heartless megalomaniacs and cruel, raping and torturing militias that keep them in power.

There’s pain and loss, God or no God

If you believe in God you get cancer or the one you love most in life dies or, worse, deserts you. If you don’t believe in God you get cancer or the one you love most in life dies, or worse, deserts you. No one’s exempt from trouble and finally death.

It could be you’re an atheist who still holds on to some common sense and refuse to believe that we can obliterate all that devastates us in life and you just accept the reality of inevitable loss. You might be one of those atheists that believe that one day we will obliterate all that troubles us. In the meantime, silly or realistic, while we’re becoming gods, millions go down to nothingness after a life of torment to join the billions who’ve gone down before them. Still, you get cancer or the one you love most in life dies, or worse, abandons you.

You might believe there is a God with unlimited power though you don’t pretend to live for him. You might well despise him because he’s doing nothing about your suffering and loss and what’s more he’s doing nothing about the world’s great sufferings and wrongs. So you dismiss him from your thoughts or rage against him for his heartlessness. Still, you get cancer or the ones you love most in life die, or worse, use and then desert you.

Maybe you believe in God and have lived a life of decency and kindness, with a conscious effort to please him. Then the thing you feared most falls on you and you call on all the “prayer warriors” who (you’re told) will wrestle God into a “yes” to remove the causes of the agony. But nothing changes; you lose your health or your family or your freedom or your job and your home and, perhaps worse, your assurance that God cares for you. You see many others delivered from trouble—at least temporarily—and you are left sobbing and desperate in yours.

God or no God—there’s universal agony!

So what are we to do?

There's nothing at all profound in the remarks that follow. I'm just another person who has given some sustained thought to the suffering of the human family that lives in the presence of the God of the Bible and feels the need to speak about it.

An OT professor told me (and about two thousand others) that we shouldn't talk about such matters; we should just get involved in the lives of people and help sustain them in their need, showing compassion and giving practical help where we can. [He said it as though we didn’t know we should give “practical” help where we can; help that would include things like sympathy or food or clothing or shelter or a job or a listening ear.] But, bless me, most of the real sufferers I've come across in life want to talk about such matters. If speakers or authors don't bring the subject up the sufferers do and, in fact, Rabbi Kushner was close to correct when he said that's all they want to talk about; wherever the religious discussion starts, he said, it ends up on why bad things happen to good people.

The OT is filled with “why?” because people believed God had made a commitment to them and it looked like he hadn't been faithful to it. To say we shouldn't talk about suffering is astonishing, especially when it comes from an OT scholar.

   The dialogue about God and human suffering didn’t begin with the 21^st century and it won’t end with it.

We should talk even though talk is limited

When we talk we’ll often be talking to people hanging by their thumbs. If we don’t talk we’ll be silent in the presence of people who are hanging by their thumbs. It’s better to talk! It’s better to talk if we have something worthwhile saying!

People hanging by their thumbs don’t make good listeners and people who want to make students out of people hanging that way have a massive job on their hands. So talk like this should be modest in its expectations and even then it’s best addressed to people who aren’t yet in the agony of desperation. Let me say it again, people in agony don’t want “explanations” (good, bad or indifferent)—they just want the pain to stop or the crisis to be averted!

That makes sense but for millions it isn’t going to happen! The pain will continue and what they fear most will happen.  And maybe at this very moment you’re one of those millions.

But what’s the point of talking if…?

But what’s the point of “talking” if the cancer’s still there or marriage is the hell you live in or the debt is still mounting or the daughter’s still in the hands of pimps and abusers who have enslaved her?

I’ve learned long ago not to believe that just because people like me are talking that people are listening. Often they’re not! Often they’re not because the situation is so pain-filled that they presently can’t!

If the only thing hurting people want is the immediate cessation of the pain then for them talking is pointless at present. In their fever of desperation their minds will be running everywhere looking and listening for a “cure” even while we’re talking.

The astonishing gallantry of humans

The astonishingly good news in the middle of all this bad news is that humans are incredibly brave, even gallant.

Setting aside the level of suffering that is so extreme that it leaves us speechless we see humans day after day, year in and year out, wrestle against odds that we’re sure would drive us over the edge but hasn’t managed to do it to them—yet.

To people like that (and they number in the millions!) we have the opportunity to speak about the God of the Hebrew—Christian scriptures; the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

They will be able to give us a hearing! They’ll do it not because we’re smart or eloquent or profess to have all the answers but precisely because they’re gallant and because like most of us in life they want to “make some sense” of the harsh realities in a world governed by a God who said he “loves” us all. Up till now they refuse to believe that this is “as good as it gets” and they’re looking for a reason to support that kind of gallant defiance. The gospel gives just such a reason (1 Peter 3:15, which is set in a suffering context).

The reality and proof of this gallantry

The Bible insists that God made us “humans” and that means we enjoy “pleasure” so we try normally to avoid what’s truly “unpleasant”. [God doesn’t object to that—he made us that way.] Just the same, if we come to think that enduring even a marked degree of what is distressing is for a greater good we gladly take it on. Just look around you at parents who choose burdens for the children’s sake or in times of war or profound need in distant lands. Of course we’re selfish but that isn’t the entire story about humans and it is nonsense to say it is. What’s more, to deny the existence of kindness, unselfishness, compassion and bravery across the board in the human family is to rob God of praise for the goodness he has generated and nurtured in humans (see Acts 17:25 and note “everything else”).

Because this is true about multitudes of suffering humans they give us the chance to “talk” and “make some sense” of the chaos and pain in the world. Of course, the vast majority of them who already trust God will continue to trust God with or without our “talk” but there’s no doubt about this: Truth makes free and if we can offer truth about God, his nature, character and purpose, the life of the suffering believer can be even richer and more peaceful in trouble and even more of a voice for God and good.

We won’t have all the “answers” but…

It’s in the context of suffering that 1 Peter 3:15 urges believers to be ready to give a good response to those who question them about their faith during trials (see 3:14-18).

It seems foolish to me that we will hunt the scriptures for “answers” to all manner of moral questions—even questions about truly exceptional circumstances—and we spend little or no time developing a rich theology of suffering. Here is something the entire human family experiences—no exceptions—and the most of what we do in the face of broken hearts and devastated lives is sympathetic hand-wringing. If we don’t do that we tell people to avoid studying or talking about the matter and “pray your way through.” If we don’t do that we dabble with verses here and there and call it “teaching”.

We don’t need to know “all the answers” and as sure as the sun rises in the east we won’t come up with all the “answers”. But that doesn’t excuse us the prayerful patient study that seeks the mind of God to help sustain the troubled.

Compassionate humans are called to give many kinds of help to the weak and needy (and they will!)—that’s written all over Matthew 25, but to deny these suffers the “help” that comes from knowing that God is at work in and through their suffering is to deny them help!

To give the suffering warm hugs, food, shelter and whatever else we can wisely provide is imperative but we’re to give them fresh courage and strength in God as Jonathan gave to David when he was hunted like an animal and fear-filled (1 Samuel 23:16). To have these people survive only on our handouts (gracious and generous though they are) is a great blunder. We must link them to God who is in and behind these practical gifts. To change their situations—where we can—is important but there will be a time when we can’t do that and that’s why it’s important that we make the attempt via truth to transform and strengthen them and enable them to live on.

If they’re in for a long rugged journey we need to empower them and give them an eye for the future, the patient heart of a pilgrim. John Masefield was right, especially right for those whose lives are not sunny and pleasant and will not be while this world stands as it is.

Not for us are content, and quiet, and peace
of mind
For we go seeking a city we shall never find.
There is no solace on earth for us—for such as
we—
Who search for a hidden city we shall never
see.
Only the road, and then the dawn, the sun,
and the wind, and the rain.
And the watch fire under the stars, and sleep,
and the road again.
.          .          .          .          .          .          .          .
We travel the dusty road, till the light of the
day is dim,
And the sunset shows us spires, away on the
world’s rim.

To give rich truth to hurting souls and to help turn them into “brave-hearts” is no little gift! When people like that see the spellbinding “City of God” they’ll thank all who helped them get there with gracious gifts of food and shelter and sympathy. They’ll also thank those who strengthened them in God with the gospel of God. We must have something to say!

What are we to say?

John Mark Hicks, theologian and experienced sufferer, who has given this subject prolonged critical reflection, has come to the conclusion that what people really need is a proclamation rather than a theodicy (a rational explanation that vindicates God). It’s a gospel people need; a message from and about God that sustains and liberates even during sore trials.

Begin with God
    It’s no surprise that many people will see God in light of life’s harsh realities. [“A God who would allow a world to be as pain-filled and unjust as this is must be…”] How could that be surprising?
   Still, however sensible it sounds that’s not where the Christian should begin. The Christian should see the harsh realities of the planet in light of God rather than the reverse. [“If God is like Jesus Christ he must be…”] The Christian has no other ground to stand on so as a matter of fact the Christian can do nothing else but start with God, his character and purpose.

Begin with which God?

In 1 Corinthians 8:4-6 Paul says that to others there may be many gods and lords but to Christians there is but one God and one Lord Jesus Christ. [Here he gives us new insight into The Shema of Deuteronomy 6:4.]

The only God the Christian knows is the God who has made himself known to us finally in and as Jesus Christ who said, “If you know me you know the Father; if you see me you see the Father” (John 14:1, 7, 9).

God had made himself known in creation and in his redemptive work with Israel but we didn’t really “see” him until he fully revealed himself in Jesus (Hebrews 1:1-3). If we can be brave enough to trust to that even in the face of crushing trouble and sore years we have what we need most because the reality of Jesus and his Story gives a complexion to the world’s great suffering and wrong.

Better no Plutarch than an evil one

“I for my part would much rather have men say of me that there never was a Plutarch at all, nor is now, than to say that Plutarch is a man inconstant, fickle, easily moved to anger, revengeful for trifling provocations, vexed at small things.” In our better moments we all feel that way and in our thoughtful moments we’d say the same about God. Better that there was no God at all than that there was a self-obsessed, tyrannical, spiteful, arbitrary or heartless one. That’s why some have said that if God wasn’t like Jesus we’d throw him off the throne of our hearts and put Jesus there!

God’s view of himself

God was well aware of what he had done to the planet in Noah’s day and what he had done to Sodom and Gomorrah in terrifying judgment. But when Moses asked God to show him his glory he gives him a revelation of his goodness and describes himself as “a God compassionate and gracious, ever faithful and true, remaining faithful to thousands, forgiving iniquity, rebellion, and sin…” (Exodus 33:18-23 and 34:5-7.)

Though he says he’s willing to have the consequences of sins work their way down through the generations (34:7) and though he knows of the “tsunami” of planetary proportions that he sent in Noah’s day he still describes himself as gracious, compassionate and faithful. That’s a real challenge to faith. To look at what he’s done and then look at him with skepticism in our eyes and have him look back at us saying, “Yes, I am compassionate and gracious and faithful; will you believe that?”—that’s the challenge.

He’s willing to risk our unbelief and rage and jeering—and he gets them! But what if he knows things that we don’t? What if he purposes wondrous things beyond our imagining—a future that’s sin and oppression-free, joy-filled, where warm righteousness reigns in the human family and disease and death are abolished? What if that’s what he’s bringing about and he is working it out even in the bedlam and chaos of this world? When having trusted him we find ourselves in such a world, astonished and forever safe will we not look at him then and hear him say, “Yes, well, I always knew that you couldn’t fully believe me but you will from now on, won’t you?”

God in view of Jesus, his life and death

The future will vindicate God but we’re not left only to the future. Whatever we humans might have thought of God prior to Jesus (and we were given reasons to trust him then) he vindicated himself in Jesus and his sufferings and death. If having seen Jesus and come to know God, really seen and come to know him—after that, if we still doubt God, he has no other “argument” that will persuade us to trust him. We’ve beaten him.

Peter in Acts 10:37-38 summarized the life of Jesus this way: “You know what has happened…How that God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him.”

This text isn’t only about Jesus; it’s about the God who empowered Jesus to give us a sample of what will be universally true and complete in a coming day. He went about healing and rescuing because God was with him!

Jesus’ view of God

The glorious future to which God is bringing us will vindicate him and the incredible past of the person and suffering of Jesus has definitively vindicated him but Jesus insisted that all around us were “proofs” that God was to be trusted. (Incredible or not, one of his “proofs” is the existence and life of his Body, the Church, in which the Lord Jesus now rehearses and re-tells his redeeming work and purpose in each generation.)

Jesus told believers that when they prayed they should say, “Our Father…” (Matthew 6:9-13.) He said if sinful human fathers wouldn’t cruelly mock their children in their needs but would care for them that God would do no less (Matthew 7:9-11)? “If you, bad as you are, know how to give good things to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask him?”

This raises questions we could perhaps look at another time; the point here is that Jesus says that if we can only open our hearts and minds then the everyday sight of caring fathers and mothers is a witness to the caring character of God. He said the proofs for God’s goodness and kindness are everywhere around us, birds, fields, flowers and family love. (Every word of Acts 17:24-29 is an education and see Isaiah 49:14-16!)

Anything that contradicts, “Our Father”

In Edna Lyall’s novel We Two, the family had been to church and heard the preacher describe God as heartless and cruel and it led young Ralph to say, “I don’t like God.” His father Donovan asked the little boy what he’d do if he heard someone say that he (Donovan) was anything like that or that he’d stop loving him. “I’d knock them down,” he said fiercely, with fists clenched. “Why?” the father asked. “Because it would be a wicked lie,” Ralph said passionately. “That’s right,” his father said, “but you just believed something of God that you wouldn’t believe of me… Never believe anything that contradicts, ‘Our Father’.”

Jesus would not only approve of that—he would insist on it as he did in his own life and teaching; in truth it is his teaching and Lyall is only repeating it. This is especially good news for we need to remember this: The God who has been the God of our fathers, the God who is our God will be the God of our children. Nothing’s going to change (see Hebrews 13:8).

The wreck of a planet

If our suffering is not so extreme that we have the energy and desire to look for “some sense” in it all, the only place we’ll find it is in God because only God is “big” enough to exercise control in human affairs and if he’s not bringing us to a new heaven and earth in which righteousness and joy and peace prevails then nobody is. If we can believe that he is doing just that, then the astonishing mess the world is in would take on a new complexion.

Horror at the side of the road

Picture this true-to-life situation; something that happens again and again and again every day somewhere in this wild world.

A lady and her little girl are in their car in a ditch; a man runs up and tries to drag the door open but can’t; begins to scream at the woman through the window, the child is silent and the mother is yelling for help; he smashes the window, pulls the door open and drags the woman from the car on to the ground. The child is now deathly silent and the man cuts her throat and then cuts off a hand.

He’s a paramedic! They’ve been in a terrible wreck, the car is about to go up in flames and the child couldn’t breathe and was trapped. [A surgeon friend of mine was in this very situation and did what under other circumstances would have murderous.] In such situations the “cure” is ghastly but those who love the victim most would urge the rescuer to get on with it.

The “big picture” transforms what appears to be callous and heartless into a labor of love.

The moral wreck of a planet

What if it’s true that the human family has had a vast moral wreck and the “divine paramedic” is doing for humanity what only he can do? But even if we believed the wreck of the universe to be real, might we not think the awful pain and loss of the world is “overkill”? I’m certain we would and I’m certain many of us do think just that. I used the moral wreck metaphor to express the world’s situation to a dear friend. He immediately accepted the point but his first response was: “overkill”.

Maybe if we knew what God knows about sin and the depth of its roots and devastating power; maybe if we knew as he knows that sin is the cosmic parasite that feeds on us and will not allow us hope or health unless it is dealt with ruthlessly and finally—maybe if we knew all that we wouldn’t think “overkill”. Maybe then we’d urge him on as adoring families urge the paramedics to do whatever it takes to bring life and health even when it horrifies us.

What if it’s true that God is dealing with the central and “behind the scenes” cause of the human family’s ceaseless woes?

The saving of “a world”

It cannot be otherwise than that we think first of those nearest and dearest to us and it’s no surprise that our pain and loss is what we’d like God to deal with—immediately! But we need someone to remind us—however painful it sounds—that God is working to save “a world”; an entire human family and not just a great number of individuals.

Sometimes human fathers can deal with specific issues involving only one of the children but almost all the time each child must be worked with as one member of a family!

To blame humans for the agony of the world makes some sense but who would allow morally -crazed villains such power in the world if he could prevent it? Besides, tsunamis, hurricanes, tornado, earthquakes, floods and disease don’t care who is running things in a country or nation—who controls them?

Millions of us insist that God is not “to blame” for the tragedies, catastrophes and evils in the world. Yet when we’re done placing the blame here or there we end up looking to heaven and in our pain we ask God what he’s up to and why he doesn’t do something about it all. In our bones we know that somewhere in the middle of all this sobbing, injury, disease, loss and loneliness God is playing a part or should be playing a part.

We’re not to be reluctant in finally holding God in some way responsible. Not only can he bear the “accusation” he takes it on himself. Job’s friends kept saying it wasn’t really God who put Job through his trial and Job kept yelling that it was God and God makes it clear that Job was right (see Job 1:9-12, 20-22; 2:3-6, 10 and 42:7, 11).

Many authors and ministers are afraid of God getting bad press so they keep shoving God out the side door and telling everyone, “God didn’t do that; he wouldn’t do such a thing.” (A prominent author of “Good Grief” told me that when Job said God did it he was wrong and was speaking lies.) They worry about people thinking God did it and God now and again worries that people will think he didn’t do it (be sure to see Deuteronomy 32:26-27). God’s judgments on the human family are always redemptive

The Bible versus life’s harsh realities

If you read the Bible you have to come

away thinking that God is supremely interested in the life of each one of us. Then there are those scattered but critically situated texts about prayer that seem to assure us that God hears our every prayer and that he will grant what we ask. Add to that the mass of books, written by people who say they are speaking for God, that assure us that our reading of the Bible is accurate. (“No, you haven’t misunderstood it; that is what it says.”)

So here comes Francois who wrestles with that way of reading scripture and those claims made by confident authors. Because the texts and the books by cheer-filled authors don’t square with the realities he and a host of his friends and acquaintances he gives up on the biblical God.

The choice seems clear: believe the Bible and act blind, deaf and dumb when life crushes texts or believe pitiless life and have the courage to scrap the Bible and all these cheery books.

Getting as much as you can of what

                     you want

Of course, masses of us couldn’t care less. We’re off to the bars, the partying, the fishing, the travel or television re-runs in a comfortable chair with a good lie-in on Sunday mornings. We're too busy working five days a week or raising kids or both (and more) to want to bother. But there’s a host of people that work equally hard and face important responsibilities in life and they care if God exists and they care if the Bible is believable or not.

No simple answers

I’m one of those that think the Bible tells us the truth and that the harsh realities of life also tell us truth. I think our difficulties are the result—in part—from our inability to understand both life and scripture and God’s overarching purpose that climaxes if the Lord Jesus.

Our difficulties will always be with us and no one, not even God himself, can soothe our raw emotions and ease our mass of exposed nerve-endings. Bless me, if more than two thousand years ago the psalms and the prophets are filled with protest and people asking God and one another for explanations what would make us think we’d come across simple answers?

It isn’t “explanations” we want

It isn’t that God hasn’t spoken clearly; it’s that he speaks to sinful and hurting people and it’s hard for people like us to hear even if Jesus himself is talking. People hanging by their thumbs aren’t the best students. But we’re not all in such torment that we’re incapable of reflecting and listening. As pained as Francois is he still asks questions and levels his protests. Some poor souls don’t have the time or energy to do even that. They only have the time to crawl into some hiding place before the Darfur rapists and murderers come around again; in Zimbabwe they only have the time to dig in the ground for mice and roots to feed their family and keep it alive or in some parts of Haiti they cook and eat soil. And nearer home vile people do the unspeakable to the defenseless who don’t want “answers” and wouldn’t understand them if you offered them; they just want someone to put a stop to their torment. There are some tortured souls whose experience is so extreme that we feel even to speak is obscene so we look at them—speechless. But for those whose lives are hard but not so hard that they can’t ask questions the wrestling is legitimate and warranted even though the gallant suffering of many around them makes the questioner wonder if they aren’t wimps to moan and lament.

Is the God of the Bible a heavenly

                sweetheart?

God has spoken clearly! He hasn’t spoken clearly on every conceivable question. He has said enough for us to work with. We don’t like the fact that God hasn’t spoken on every question we would like to ask, and that’s understandable. But I think that’s only part of a part of the problem. We don’t like it that he hasn’t said enough but we like even less much of what he has said. We go through and pick out the things that please and assure us and pay little or no attention to what he has said that we don’t want to hear.

But it’s worse than that. We who say we speak for him—don’t like a lot of what he says. What’s more, we’re not prepared to say many of the things he has said and said plainly. We come across people who don’t like much of what they hear in scripture and we hurry to assure them that that isn’t what the scriptures say. “Oh, no, God wouldn’t say something like that!” we tell them. We meet people who don’t like what they see in life and we hurry to assure them that God has nothing to do with things that are unpleasant. We who say we speak for God and scripture tell some biblical truths and rework the rest so that it suits the critics or the peeved or ourselves. We speak some truths about life and “explain” the rest in an attempt to please everyone but the God we say sent us to speak for him. We present “a biblical” picture of God and how he relates to the human race that is neither true to the whole counsel of God or life as it comes to us.

Some of the disappointment, desperation and pain (or at least their intensity) that suffering people endure rises because of the difference between their expectations and the reality they live with. We teach them to expect certain things and when they don’t arrive as promised they’re gutted. [You can see this in its most obvious form when people go to these big-wheeling “healers” and are diverted into a side tent or building and never get to see “the main man”. Or those that are bundled off the stage; assured that they’re healed when nothing’s happened and everyone concerned knows it!] I would guess that by far the bulk of the disappointment and pain that Western believers experience comes when the biblical promises fail—when God let’s you down.

Still, if we could just make sense of it

But here we go again, “explaining” why the promises aren’t fulfilled. Why doesn’t God just fulfill the promises and we wouldn’t need “explanations”? For those who have no time or interest in “explanations” the Bible has nothing to say, so you can be sure I have nothing to say and reading this is a waste of precious time. I can speak a little from my own limited experience and say that “explanation” has made some of my life much more bearable. I’ve known a little pain and disappointment down the years and even though I had explanations, now and then I’ve sobbed because the explanations didn’t remove the experience of hurt but they threw light on the hurt so that it didn’t consume me. Tens of millions experience that every day. If we can just “make sense” or get a glimpse of “purpose” it makes it easier to endure—easier but not always “easy”. If our child’s surgery is purely routine and he or she dies during it—we’re devastated, even more so than if we’d been told it was a touch-and-go operation. The husband or wife we love brings down the curtain on our marriage because we “cannot” behave—we’re devastated; but more so if they walked off without reason or explanation. Give us something to hold on to that makes sense and people are amazingly resilient.

I think we who talk for God and people have distorted the message in some really critical areas. I don’t believe that I have the answers for everything; I’m not even a minor verbal-messiah but I have deep convictions that enable me to work with the hurt that makes me weep; and they might be helpful to someone else. I struggle to speak to keep from saying nothing. They’re complex convictions that can’t be fully developed in a brief offering like this and you’d need to be patient even to hear them, and, then, having heard them you might well think them nonsense. But that’d be all right too; at least you would have heard them.

“Natural laws” are the will of God—

              don’t deny it

We speakers talk so much rubbish about prayer and create expectations that God nor Bible ever created. By the time we’re done talking, God dare not say “no” or we’re sure he has proved himself faithless. That isn’t the biblical doctrine of prayer! Prayer is one of those massive and grand realities God has blessed the world with but it is one reality that functions within other larger realities.

The will of God is seen in what we call “the laws of nature”. It’d be foolish to suggest that he isn’t Lord of these laws but it’s equally foolish to suggest that they aren’t an expression of his will. The water that keeps us clean is capable of drowning us precisely because it’s capable of washing us. The fire that warms and cooks our food is capable of burning us precisely because it’s capable of warming and feeding us. Two cars meeting head on at speed results in injury or death—these are the “physics” of the matter. The “laws of nature” include the laws of personal development, including environment, relationships, neural pathways, genes and the rest. These “laws” are the expressed will of God. They exist because God continuously wills them to exist. That God can work outside and above these is clear but that they’re his “normal” way of expressing himself is also clear; even when he answers prayer with a yes or no.

God can and does say “no” to personal

                   requests

To say God couldn’t prevent a wreck (or a cancer or an earthquake) is nonsense but to say he must because we ask him to, that’s presumptuous. To understand a text of scripture to mean that whatever we ask for, God has already committed to give it to us is sheer nonsense.

Paul asked “three times” to have a chronic and gouging pain removed and God said no (2 Corinthians 12:7-10). Isolate the prayer from the context and we’re left with a perfectly reasonable request by a good man that a miserly and unfeeling Lord refused to grant. But look how the scene changes when we note the context that shows that a “no” to Paul’s request made perfect sense and that he was glad for the no when he finally understood. Yes, but what if we can’t see how a “no” would fit into a redemptive context? What if we view our requests as trivial compared with Paul’s and can see no good reason why they got a no? What if we’ve had “no” so often that we wonder if God knows the word “yes”?

God’s ceaseless stream of “yeses”

I find all those questions sensible and reasonable—and human. But they’re questions that come from (understandably) irritated and disappointed people who are ignorant of so much of God’s cosmic purpose. [Sometimes they come from people who care nothing for God or his purposes and who just like to hear themselves talk.] In any case, believers need to remember that we’re showered with “yeses” from God day in and day out. I’m not now speaking about people in extreme poverty and danger—even if they had the time and energy to read this—they’d fling it from them and sob for it all to stop; I have the rest of us in mind. Day in and day out God gives us blessings. Clean water, fresh air, a democratic government, health, a clear mind (which we often use to criticize him), friends and acquaintances, good education, decent jobs, warm clothes, homes, parents and a mass lovely things. He knows how to say “yes” but because we’ve had a lot of “no” and have to endure severe trials we tend to forget this.

The connection’s real even when we

              can’t stomach it

And when we say we can’t see the connection between our losses, disappointments, pains and God’s cosmic purpose we’re expressing only our ignorance—pained ignorance but ignorance just the same. But because we don’t know the connection doesn’t mean there isn’t one.  What if in bringing the human family to a glorious finale that “no” is one necessary strand of God’s way of working? What if he isn’t mad at you, what if he isn’t mad at anyone at that point? What if in the “land of the Trinity” where the redemption and glorification of a sinful humanity has been planned that “no” is as much a part of the way to life for the family as “yes”? In a wise and loving human family “no” is required for many good reasons and “no” is required even to reasonable requests. Because children often have conflicting desires and needs, a “no” to someone is the wise and loving response. If only in this phase of living we had hope then every “no” would be magnified. If the final purpose was our being happy then every “no” could be a black hole that swallowed all.

If God was kind he would…

Yes, but if God’s kind he would prevent an injustice, a car wreck or a rape or a murder. Would he indeed? Did he prevent the injustice heaped on his own Son or the brutal murder of that Son? When the holy and obedient Son expressed his desire to avoid the cup, the Father refused to grant it. A kind Father would have exempted his Son from the cup! Would he indeed? It was precisely because he was a kind and Holy Father who loved all the children he created that he wouldn’t exempt this unique Son from the cup. His “no” to the Son was part of his “yes” to all his created sons and daughters. Christ’s request was perfectly reasonable, it wasn’t that he was asking for a billion dollars in a Swiss bank account; agony was tearing him apart and he asked to be released from it. If we ignore the biblical Story as a whole, if ever there was a time when a prayer should have been given the green light it was then. If you isolate his request from the larger world and vaster purpose within which it occurred you have a different prayer! Rip his prayer out of its cosmic, redemptive and holy context and it isn’t the prayer that was prayed in the garden. Place the prayer in the biblical context and the “no” becomes not only understandable, it becomes the only answer we can expect and the one we’re glad to hear.

What if it’s true that…

And what does all this prove? Well, for starters it proves that God can love supremely and say “no”. And what if it’s the case that his “no” to Jesus and his “no” to the followers of Jesus (and to his human family at large) on a host of occasions—what if they have the same nature and are part of the unfolding saving drama? What if his “no” to Christ and his no to us rise out of the same soil? What if we bear loss and pain as part of God’s redeeming agenda and method? Of course Christ is unique! But what he experienced isn’t unique—it’s because he is unique that what he shared with us in common becomes the redemption of the world. What if he continues to rehearse his suffering in those who are the body of Christ?

What if “no” to all the righteous women and men and boys and girls down the ages comes to focus and crowning glory in God’s no to the sinless Christ? What if it is part of the means by which God exposes sin, teaches utter dependence, bears the sin of the world and brings humanity to glory?

What if the pain and disappointment that the believers experience is nothing other than Christ filling up the cup of suffering that he is destined to suffer in and through his body? Compare Colossians 1:24 and Acts 9:4-5.

God’s “no” to a man who should have

                    had a “yes”

Whatever Paul’s thorn in the flesh was it was causing severe distress (2 Corinthians 12:7-10). It was “to buffet” him and the word doesn’t suggest anything like “inconvenience”. The very reading of the text suggests that the distress and pain is enduring and in light of God’s response it was to last even longer.

Paul tells us he prayed to God about it and asked him three times to remove it. Three times might be literal and it might also reflect his imaging out of the Christ’s experience in Gethsemane. Imaging it, not in any slavish artificial way. And since he models his own life on that of Moses we will remember that Moses spoke to God more than once, asking God to let him into the promised land. We’ll recall that God told Moses the burden wouldn’t be lifted and that he was not to mention the matter again (Deuteronomy 3:23-27). We’ll remember too that in 1 Corinthians 9:27 Paul doesn’t wish to experience the rejection Moses experienced at the end of his life of service.

In any case, Paul prayed fervently and asked for relief. In saying he asked he used an aorist verb in the indicative. This suggests that his days of asking were decisively in the past; he did it back then and was done with it. The reason he was done with it is because the Lord (in this text probably the Lord Jesus) who knew all about being denied a request denied his request and gave him assurance.

When he tells us about the Lord’s response Paul uses a verb in the perfect tense. And if we allow it to function as a perfect tense verb then Paul hears the word of the Lord ringing in his ear even as he writes to the Corinthians. Back then Paul used to ask for relief but he put a stop to it. And he stopped it because the Lord said something to him that he hears even now as he writes.

Before we read what it was that the Lord said we need to note that for Paul it was decisive and satisfying. We need to note also that the man who was begging for relief was God’s faithful servant who was on the rack. Instead of rushing over that truth to get to another we need to feel for the depths of it.

This was such a person that we might have thought should get a “yes” to the plea for relief. We sort of feel that he “earned” it. This was the sort of person we would be especially eager to relieve and if the Lord has any compassion about him the kind of “compassion” that means something to us, surely Paul’s hurt was a strong appeal.

Making it easy for God to trust us!

 But this was such a person that in some ways made it easy for the Lord to say “no”. Paul’s desire for ease was real and urgent because the pain was prolonged and severe. (Underscoring the obvious sound of the text, the lexical work and grammar make that clear.) But down below his strong desire for relief was something profoundly stronger—his hunger to serve God’s redeeming purposes. The situation here was such that relief would not have served God’s gracious purposes best and that more than he wanted relief Paul wanted God’s glory and our redemption in Christ. In this we find Paul going through his own Gethsemane. His Master too had longed for relief but below the hunger for ease there was a deeper and more pulsating hunger to do his Holy Father’s will. In this text Paul is finding part of what he longed for in Philippians 3, to enter into the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings. And listen, because Paul was that kind of man and because Jesus was that kind of Son they made it easier for God to say “no”. God knew he could trust them. They so responded to God that he knew he could trust them!

Is God heartless then?

Here is a section of scripture that urges us to believe that pain and loss delivered by the hand of some satanic messenger is made to serve the glorious purposes of God. Here is a section that urges us to believe that God looks at some among us and by the depth of their devotion to him and to the world that he loves God is free to say “no” to their fervent pleas for ease.

And it isn’t that God’s glorious purposes are heartless! The person and work of Jesus Christ bury that notion forever. God says “yes” to teeming millions of requests but he not only reserves the right to say “no,” he does it. Sometimes the no is at awful cost to the sufferer and it makes perfect sense that they would rather have a yes—how could it be otherwise? We’re dreaming if we think Paul always walked around grinning and didn’t at times double up in pain and wish the answer could be yes. Christ left the garden as faithful as he went in but you can be sure he came out trembling. No one waved a magic wand and pain and anguish vanished. There was assurance, explanation and comfort (comfort, and not mere consolation).

Job’s later word to God could have been: “You know, for a while you made it hard for me to believe in you.” God’s word to Job could have been: “Isn’t that interesting, you made it easy for me to believe in you.”

So should we just shut our mouths and

                       obey?

So are we not to expect anything from God? Does prayer make no difference? Does what we need have no effect on God’s governing of human affairs? Does the fine print in the Bible effectively empty the more obvious words of their meaning?

Well...yes and no!

Should we expect God to provide for us? Jesus insists that God does provide for us whether we pray or not and even whether we believe in him or not. He sends the sun and the rain on both the evil and the good (Matthew 5:45 and Luke 6:35). [What about those places where he sends the rain on neither the evil nor good? It’s a good question but it’s for another time. I’m addressing those of us that have no experience of extreme poverty.] For those who are able and willing to believe what Christ said, God gives life and the things necessary to sustain life. Paul insists in Acts 14:16-17 and 17:25 that God not only gives to all nations fruitful seasons and times to be glad, he gives them “everything else”. Why this isn’t the present experience of every individual in the world is an important question but at this moment we need to settle the one we’re working with.

There are people who enjoy countless blessings of friendship, health, income, food, family, job, political freedom, education and more. Who provides these? Biblical writers insist that they come from God and Jesus, in the Lord's Prayer, urges us to believe that. It simply won’t do to look at life and say it in no way matches the biblical claims and promises. Yes, of course, there are many reasonable desires that we ask God for and don’t get. To say that is correct but to move from that to claim he gives us nothing makes no sense at all.

So, should we just be grateful for what we get and shut our mouths? We certainly should be thankful but he doesn’t speak to shut us up and neither should those that profess to speak for him. Philippians 4:6 and Ephesians 6:18 urge believers to make their requests known to God. Loving parents provide for their children and should one of them ask for something that is beyond the basics we wouldn’t expect to hear them told that they’re not to ask for more than the parents have decided to provide. It’s very clear from both scripture and life that God has blessed some people with more than others and it’s very clear that he has blessed them with a lot more than they need simply to exist. [He also expects them to share!]

God to Job: “You think you know what’s

                       going on?”

I understand that some non-believers find that too much to swallow but then I’m not addressing non-believers at this moment. Those who are willing to give scripture a hearing will accept that claim. All right, it generates difficult questions even for believers but why should that surprise us? Just trying to figure out how to take care of the conflicting needs and wants of a small family can tax the brain and patience of loving and wise parents. As soon as you increase the size of the family, the urgency of their needs and the depth of their desire for some beyond-the-basic things everything is so much more complex and harder to assess. When it becomes a national family and you watch a government trying to satisfy the needs and wants of various sectors—if you’re fair—you begin to see the difficulty in providing. But more than that—again, if you’re fair—you know that the rank and file that are being represented by government are not able to see the difficulties involved in providing. I don’t say God sits wringing his hands wondering what to do. I do say that needy and acquisitive humans aren’t able (or always willing) to admit the complexities of the situation. Job, the wise man, knew he was hurting and so did his wise friends but they hadn’t a clue about the cosmic ramifications of what was going on.

“I want you to give me…” and “What will

                    you give me?”

And then there’s this—and we don’t like to be reminded of this, especially when life has been hard for a long time—it just isn’t right to see our relationship with God as a one way affair where he does all the giving and we do all the taking. What if he asks us to give him something? What if he wants to use us to bless others and it means that it’ll cost us something?

He called on Joseph to serve him in Egypt and despite the boy’s pleas (Genesis 42:21) God chained him and sold into Egypt (Genesis 45:5-8a, Psalm 105:17-18). Joseph wanted to go home and God said no and sent him into slavery. If we didn’t know the whole story we could easily—and understandably—think this was another case where God shrugged at injustice and cruelty or wrung his hands in despair because he could do nothing about the evil that humans choose to do. But the Bible doesn’t see things that way. God’s no to Joseph was his yes to tens of thousands of others in time of famine and it meant the elect line was kept alive and finally led to the Messiah. God’s no to Joseph meant thirteen long years away from home but if you asked Joseph, the lord of Egypt, if he would rather that God had let him go back home instead of into Egypt he would have said “no!”

The Bible is filled with texts that believers avoid while they’re rooting out all the “assuring” texts. Amos 4 tells us explicitly that God sent drought and famine and pestilence and war on apostate Israel [in order to bring them back to him and to life] but what of the innocent children and the righteous men and women who didn’t turn from God? They suffered along with the guilty. God wasn’t punishing them but they got it in the neck just the same! What would we have said to such men, women and children? Well? When they said they just wanted the pain to stop what would we have said? When they prayed for their family to be exempted what would we have said? It was a bad request? They were just being wimps? That their pain wasn’t real and excruciating? A pox on that kind of talk! They were bearing and sharing God’s judgment on the guilty that he might bring the guilty back to life and God wouldn’t exempt them just as he wouldn’t spare his own Son (Romans 8:32).

God’s “no” to Jesus as his definitive and

                      eternal “yes”

It’s true that in scripture prophets, psalmists, kings and peasants all cried to God in protest at the profusion of “no’s” without explicit explanation, but why should that startle us? They were just like us, bewildered and disappointed. The Bible wants us to understand that God understands our protests and feelings. But when you take the biblical narrative as a whole and have Jesus as the final “yes” to all the promises of God (2 Corinthians 1:20) then we have the normative teaching. In Christ as the “Yes” of God we hear that all that we rightly expect from God is being and will be fulfilled.

We will discover in the end that the “no” is a purposed part of the complex whole and that we to whom so many no’s were said are part of the redeeming vehicle. God eternally purposed to say no and then did say no to his own unique Son, though it led that Child to sob his heart out and feel as though he was being crushed to death (Hebrew 5:7, Matthew 26:38). If that’s true then surely we need to embrace his “no” as part of a glorious and ultimately life-bringing agenda.

And if we say he could have worked world redemption without a “no” or that he could have created a world and a humanity in which “no” had no place, just look what we’ve done! To keep us from having to come to terms with a long list of painful disappointments we want the whole universe constructed differently. And maybe that’s understandable too. But what if God has made the right choice? What if his way of dealing with humanity’s rebellion and bringing us to deathless life and unbroken peace is the best way? What if “no” really is what must be in a world of choosing, inter-dependent humans where to say “yes” to some means “no” must be said to others? What if God is honoring us by saying “no” to us and by that lays on us a burden that we carry for others? What if “no” is one of the essential elements in bringing about the final and profoundly satisfying “yes” from a generous and holy God whose agenda is infinitely more wonderful than our present complete satisfaction? Imagine him coming into your room, looking you right in the eye and telling you, “I mean you no harm. Trust me when I tell you that in a sinful world ‘no’ is only part of the final ‘yes’ to which I’m bringing you.” As sinful as I am and as selfish as I’m capable of being I’m still assured by that thought.

Simple answers to complex questions—

                always “wrong”

We make complex matters too simple. We feel God lets us down—in part—because we don’t really know what we’re asking or what’s involved in getting what we want. John is unemployed and prays God to get him a job. He’s thrilled when he gets an interview at Holsen’s Machine Parts factory and thanks God for answered prayer. Hmmm. Holsen is expanding at the expense of Fleet’s and they had to lay-off seventy-five of their workers. Peter worked for Fleet for twenty years and needed the job. He knew lay-offs were coming and had prayed that he would be spared. Peter and John go to the same church, pray to the same God for the same but conflicting things.

Rachel has been praying for a fine Christian husband for her daughter Mary—why wouldn’t she? And the newcomer to their church—Charles Petrie—is just that. Despite Rachel’s fervent prayers Mary isn’t interested in Charles and, anyway, Belinda Hathaway has been praying as well—why wouldn’t she?—and she and Charles hit it off. They’re planning to get married in about six months. Rachel wanted what Mary didn’t want and Belinda got a “yes”, which meant that Rachel had to get a “no”.

The national economy is on the decline, tens of thousands pray for serious improvement—why wouldn’t they? And it comes—in the exports sector. The national currency has weakened so outsiders can buy more from the home nation so all who work in that sector thank God for answered prayer. But because the national currency has weakened the imports industries have to pay more for foreign goods and materials and this rise is passed on to the rank and file in either wage cuts, job losses or price increases for the goods. Import businesses go under and the whole workforce is laid off. Huge numbers in the export trade gain and huge numbers in the import trade are squeezed.

Nations go to war. Families pray for the safety of their loved ones—why wouldn’t they? But their Tom or Ann is kept alive at the expense of someone else’s son or daughter. Those now dead sons and daughters were prayed for and while some families celebrate a homecoming other families mourn the arrival of corpses.

Raw power can’t cure everything

Yes, yes, but why does there have to be all this confusion and conflict of interests? Why doesn’t an all-powerful and all wise God work it out where no one is ever disappointed or hurt? Maybe if we were as wise as God we would know not to ask such questions! Some things can’t be fixed with just “power”. If God had a jillion times more power than he now has (and he has all power) he still couldn’t do some things. Not being able to make a square circle or a four-sided triangle has nothing to do with power! And if we had half a brain we wouldn’t set such tasks within a “power” context. God can't give a “yes” to both Rachel and Belinda about Charles and it has nothing to do with how wise or powerful he is.

Sinners can’t be trusted with prayer as a

                   blank check 

God’s wisdom and power and holy love serve an eternal agenda that takes into account our freedom to rebel against him, war against each other, be greedy and predatory. It takes into account that we are a single human family, inextricably bound one to another and who therefore affect one another for good or ill by our attitudes and behavior and desires. He has created us as one and means us to live in response to one another and he refuses to live our lives for us in a ceaseless stream of divine interventions that negate our humanity and responsibility toward each other. If he didn’t want us to live our lives he wouldn’t have given them to us!

If we don’t open our hearts to another way of looking at life we’re beat before we begin. There are tens of thousands every day and in every generation that are praying for the rich blessing and happiness of the whole human race. If all prayers got an automatic “yes” then no one would need to pray for anything because everyone would already have everything.

Don’t let anyone kid you into thinking that prayer is a simple matter. And don’t let them con you into believing that God has committed himself to say “yes” to every reasonable request. And don’t rob yourself by thinking that prayer is nothing more than asking for things. And don’t let life’s disappointment and pain lead you to be permanently angry with the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Don’t let it become all about us wanting things and God being so stingy that he won’t give them to us. What if he doesn’t want to give them to us? What if he thinks it’s our turn to go without for reasons at present known only to himself? (Some of you who are suffering greatly must surely find yourself getting angry in light of such remarks. Get angry with me if you must but do your best to remember that you see him best in Jesus Christ and he would never treat your awful hurt as of no account. Trust him and believe that he will restore to you the years that the locusts have eaten—compare Joel 2:25.) What if the God who shed blood for us unto death in Jesus Christ is doing what is best for a sinful human family’s ultimate blessing? What if he came saying: “This is all too complex for you to grasp the whole. When the drama is completed you will understand and be glad that you committed to me in trust. I...will...not...let...you...down!”

What kind of God does he have to be to

           gain our commitment?

What kind of God must God be for us to serve him and rejoice in a relationship with him? This is a good and fundamentally important question. Whatever we say, we could not and should not worship a deity that is demonstrably worse than we are in our worst moments! If we have no good reason to believe he is good and if we have well-established reasons to believe he is cruel and capricious, we should renounce him. [We have a lot of people picking verses from here and there in the Bible to show God is cruel. We have a lot of believers who “explain” texts like that to keep God from getting bad press.]

Of course God could bludgeon us into saying worshipful things or he could turn us into automata and he’d get what he wanted. We would be afraid of him and grovel before him—if he tortured us enough he could make us do that but he could never get us to freely love and worship and enjoy him. I think the agnostic John S Mill took himself a bit too seriously but surely he was right when he said that God must be “good” in the way that good people are “good” if we are to praise him and love to be in his presence. If “good” has no meaning that we can recognize, then why would we praise him for being “good”?

So the question is a good one and an important one in the realm of moral philosophy but in the light of Jesus Christ in particular and the entire biblical witness as a unit it’s a redundant question. For those who commit to the truth about Christ the case is closed—God is good in the way that good people can understand goodness! [“If you, then, evil as you are know how to give good things to your children how much more does your Father in heaven…”] I realize that non-believers dispute that but at this moment we’re not dealing with non-believers. These remarks are addressed to disappointed and hurting believers whose questions arise precisely because they believe God is good. If they didn’t believe God existed or if they believed that he was cruel and capricious their questions about prayer and God’s behavior wouldn’t exist.

But even believers are tempted to debate about the kind of God they want to welcome into their lives. There are those who have trusted in God but because he didn’t or doesn’t respond as they think he should they have walked away from him. Oh, they’re pretty sure he’s still around; but what use is he if he doesn’t provide as they think God should provide? They too work with the question: What kind of God must God be for us to serve him and rejoice in a relationship with him? So the question remains a good one and an important one.

But the first question should be…

But it’s not the first question that should be asked! That question is asked from the creature’s standpoint and it’s asked very often from a selfish creature’s standpoint. A creature richly blessed but wanting more. The creature has become the center around which everything must revolve. Certainly it isn’t always selfishness that drives the question—sometimes it’s desperation and anguish but even then, it’s not the first question that should be asked! Even then that question comes from a human that sees him or herself as the center of reality. The hurt and anguish makes them their center!

The first question should be: “What kind of person must I be to welcome the only God there is into my life?” In light of Jesus Christ and the Hebrew-Christian scriptures God is good and has an agenda that offers fullness of life to a sinful humanity. As far as Christ and scripture is concerned it isn’t for us to make God in our image but for us to seek his image. He isn’t the one that needs to change.

So, that’s it, is it? God has all the power and we’re simply to knuckle down to him? We’re to grovel at the feet of the omnipotent bully that can out-talk and out-think us? No, that’s not it at all! We misunderstand the notion of “power” in relation to God and we certainly haven’t seen nor heard of Jesus Christ if we think God is an omnipotent bully. God help us, because we’re sad and lonely and hurt and high strung with anguish we want him to make the world work differently or we want him to change so as to give us some peace and longed-for joy. It all makes so much sense when we think we’ve taken as much as we can take. But give us some lovely days or weeks, give us some joy, some things that make us smile for a while and we know better. Ease the burden a while, give us a chance to gulp in some fresh air when we’ve been smothering, give us a few truths—especially if they’re embodied in gallant people—and we smile ruefully at God and tell him, “Don’t change. I wouldn’t want you to be unlike Jesus Christ. I’ll change.”

Simple charity and sympathy: the danger

Let me say it again, anyone who simply refuses to give material and social help to those in need is liable to have Matthew 25:41-46 stamped on his forehead! Any congregation that caters massively to its own physical/worship comforts and offers a sheer pittance to the countless Lazaruses lying around locally and all over creation—that congregation is asking for the same judgment.

Inspired and strengthened by bread from the Hebrew—Christian Bible (though they don’t or won’t admit that) huge numbers of non-believers are up to their necks in easing the burden of the needy. Huge numbers of believers are doing the same thing and in many cases they (understandably) avoid linking their work with their faith.

The danger in this is that humans see kind humans giving them “real” help and God is nowhere in sight. Weak and limited humans are left to help their fellows live another day or ease the pain for another day or kill a parasite in another child for another day. This is glorious work and should be praised no matter who it is that’s doing it! But it underscores the “absence” of God! If decent, compassionate humans weren’t there, there’d be no help at all.

Because what the humans can do is so limited and God with all his power “sits idly by” he is

despised or raged against by the millions left without a shred of help. The believers are honored by the needy for their compassionate involvement but their faith is dismissed. Non-believers admire the involved believers but think they are better than their faith and their God.

Not to bring God into the suffering of the world is to do less than we can. To give a cup of water in Jesus’ name is to harm no one.

©2004 Jim McGuiggan. All materials are free to be copied and used as long as money is not being made.