What Are You Going To Do About It, God?
Imagine this:
A married couple sits across from each other at the dinner table. The husband sits in silence, eyes sad, face disappointed. His wife's face is tense, her eyes are wary, and her arms are folded. They've been apart all day, working and doing regular life things, but now they're home and the day has drawn to a close - they can finally have some time together. However, as they sit there, they don't laugh together or hold each other like they once did. They aren't listening intently to stories of each others' day in order to learn each other better and gain a picture of what happened when they were apart. Instead, the wife is testily speaking about bills and problems with the family, guardedly throwing out solutions that she expects her husband to fulfill. After a little while, they get up and go to bed. The wife is closed off to him and the husband is sad they she doesn't spend time with him like she used to. This happens day after day after day.
Do you think their relationship is growing in love? Probably not.
Most of us would immediately recognize that there's a problem in their relationship - its pretty easy to see that instead of focusing on her husband and the love that they share, the wife is letting regular old difficulties in life come in between them and define their relationship. But what's sometimes harder to see is that we can let the same thing happen in our relationship with God.
When we choose to see God through the lens of our problems and worries, we don't see Him accurately. Instead of seeing Him as He is and resting in it, we begin to look at Him from the perspective of "He might let [insert bad thing] happen, so I'm not going to trust Him completely until I know He handles this the way that I want Him to." And because we become guarded and suspicious the longer we do this, we end up forgetting that God has always been faithful to us. Think of the Israelites in the desert! After God safely led them out of Egypt, after He guarded their way by manifesting Himself as a pillar of smoke in the daytime and a pillar of fire in the night, after bringing them right up to the edge of the promised land, they say to each other, "I don't think this is going to go well. God brought us all the way out here and I just know He's gonna fail us. Let's just go back to Egypt and figure this out ourselves." And God's response? "Why do these people despise me? How long will they refuse to believe in me, despite all the signs that I've done among them?"
I wonder how often God thinks that same thought towards us.
Because the Israelites were so worried that God was going to fail them, they end up being the ones to fail. They failed to see God as He really is - as faithful, good, and loving. We do the same thing all the time. How many of us, when we're sitting and spending time with God, are spending the whole time telling Him the things we're worried about and waiting for answers, just asking Him what He's going to do about them... and then leaving? We're absolutely supposed to go to God with our cares and worries, but over time if that's all that we're doing when we're with Him, we're going to end up with a very stunted relationship. The entirety of the love between us and God will be reduced to us standing at one side of a chasm, suspiciously regarding God as somebody who may or may not be worthy of our trust, depending on how He works out a situation or two. We begin to see God through the lens of our problems instead of seeing our problems through the lens of our God.
I've learned this lesson again and again, and its not an easy one. Awful, dreadful, scary things come up in life and in that time, a neat and pretty picture of Christianity won't do you much good. Life can be gritty and difficult, but no matter what happens in life, nothing will ever be worth damaging your relationship with God over.
So I challenge you (and myself) today. When you spend time with God, give Him your problems - but really give them to Him. Then, get to know Him. Spend that time that you have with Him actually looking at Him, learning who He is, asking Him to renew your opinion and perspective of Him. Don't be like the married couple who spends all of their time talking about their petty life problems instead of enjoying the gift of love that they have together. God is good, and He wants you to know that He is good - His word shows us over and over again how much He hates when people don't trust Him!
And finally, don't be so concerned about what He's going to do. Just let Him worry about that.
A married couple sits across from each other at the dinner table. The husband sits in silence, eyes sad, face disappointed. His wife's face is tense, her eyes are wary, and her arms are folded. They've been apart all day, working and doing regular life things, but now they're home and the day has drawn to a close - they can finally have some time together. However, as they sit there, they don't laugh together or hold each other like they once did. They aren't listening intently to stories of each others' day in order to learn each other better and gain a picture of what happened when they were apart. Instead, the wife is testily speaking about bills and problems with the family, guardedly throwing out solutions that she expects her husband to fulfill. After a little while, they get up and go to bed. The wife is closed off to him and the husband is sad they she doesn't spend time with him like she used to. This happens day after day after day.
Do you think their relationship is growing in love? Probably not.
Most of us would immediately recognize that there's a problem in their relationship - its pretty easy to see that instead of focusing on her husband and the love that they share, the wife is letting regular old difficulties in life come in between them and define their relationship. But what's sometimes harder to see is that we can let the same thing happen in our relationship with God.
When we choose to see God through the lens of our problems and worries, we don't see Him accurately. Instead of seeing Him as He is and resting in it, we begin to look at Him from the perspective of "He might let [insert bad thing] happen, so I'm not going to trust Him completely until I know He handles this the way that I want Him to." And because we become guarded and suspicious the longer we do this, we end up forgetting that God has always been faithful to us. Think of the Israelites in the desert! After God safely led them out of Egypt, after He guarded their way by manifesting Himself as a pillar of smoke in the daytime and a pillar of fire in the night, after bringing them right up to the edge of the promised land, they say to each other, "I don't think this is going to go well. God brought us all the way out here and I just know He's gonna fail us. Let's just go back to Egypt and figure this out ourselves." And God's response? "Why do these people despise me? How long will they refuse to believe in me, despite all the signs that I've done among them?"
I wonder how often God thinks that same thought towards us.
Because the Israelites were so worried that God was going to fail them, they end up being the ones to fail. They failed to see God as He really is - as faithful, good, and loving. We do the same thing all the time. How many of us, when we're sitting and spending time with God, are spending the whole time telling Him the things we're worried about and waiting for answers, just asking Him what He's going to do about them... and then leaving? We're absolutely supposed to go to God with our cares and worries, but over time if that's all that we're doing when we're with Him, we're going to end up with a very stunted relationship. The entirety of the love between us and God will be reduced to us standing at one side of a chasm, suspiciously regarding God as somebody who may or may not be worthy of our trust, depending on how He works out a situation or two. We begin to see God through the lens of our problems instead of seeing our problems through the lens of our God.
I've learned this lesson again and again, and its not an easy one. Awful, dreadful, scary things come up in life and in that time, a neat and pretty picture of Christianity won't do you much good. Life can be gritty and difficult, but no matter what happens in life, nothing will ever be worth damaging your relationship with God over.
So I challenge you (and myself) today. When you spend time with God, give Him your problems - but really give them to Him. Then, get to know Him. Spend that time that you have with Him actually looking at Him, learning who He is, asking Him to renew your opinion and perspective of Him. Don't be like the married couple who spends all of their time talking about their petty life problems instead of enjoying the gift of love that they have together. God is good, and He wants you to know that He is good - His word shows us over and over again how much He hates when people don't trust Him!
And finally, don't be so concerned about what He's going to do. Just let Him worry about that.
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