UGW #12: God Works All Things For Good
Understanding God's Will #12:
I used to take comfort in the fact that God does whatever He wants to do and that God causes everything to happen for a reason. But if that’s not the case, then what?
I once heard about a mom and dad who were going away for vacation. They had to leave their nearly-adult teenager at home. They knew that he might end up making bad decisions; he might throw a party and do things that they didn’t want him to do. And they had the power to prevent that. They could have stayed home or sent Grandma over to watch him.
But in their wisdom, they knew that he was going to be an adult and on his own in college in just a year or so. And they realized that this was a good opportunity to test him and to see what decisions he would make. They encouraged him to choose wisely, and they hoped that he would choose wisely. Because they knew that was the best for him.
Now, if he chose to make mistakes, they would not have caused him to do it. They were allowing him to do it, but they weren’t causing it. But they allowed him the opportunity to make mistakes because they knew that they could use it to teach him life-lessons. Since he was still at home and under their care, they could use his mistakes to challenge him and grow him and help him find the right path, before he was let go into the world.
And that’s kind of how I believe God works with mankind. God gave us this world, told us the best way to live, and then let us decide to listen or not. But He does not cause our disobedience and the consequences of our bad choices and of the Fall. While it’s a fine distinction, I think that it is more accurate (in many instances) to say that God allows things for a reason, instead of causing things for a reason. And whatever God does allow, He allows because He knows that it can be can used for His good purposes, whether for us, for others, or for mankind, in general.
So, He might not cause it for His purposes, but He can and will use it for His purposes. And He can do this since He sees all of history at one time and can see how things can be worked together to accomplish His goals, something good. Of course, He wants us to choose the best way the first time around (and that will spare us a lot of heartache and trouble), but He can and will use our mistakes to make something good and He will incorporate them into His overall plans for us.
And just because He allows something bad to happen (say, cancer or a tornado) doesn’t mean that He always and necessarily wanted it to happen. Bad things are a part of living in a free-will, fallen world. But He knows that He can take it and use it for something good. If we let Him. If we trust Him.
(Yet let's not fool ourselves. God can and does cause things to happen that we don't like, but not sin or evil, when it serves His purpose. As God, He has that right.)
And if I may point out, God is definitely a God of healing in the Bible. We read so much about how He wants health for us, how Jesus healed and how the disciples were sent to heal. About how He desires that we have abundant lives, goodness, wholeness, as opposed to pain, illness, and heartache. How He desires eternal life for us all (as opposed to Calvi-god who wants eternal damnation for most).
But pain, illness, and heartache are a part of living in a fallen world. He didn’t plan or desire these things for us. (Not that He can’t or doesn’t ever cause them for a reason.) But they are consequences of our decisions and of Satan’s influence.
But God does promise to work all things, even the pain, for good ... for those who love Him. And this is the promise that you can take comfort in.
“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28).
And I think this is the verse that people are misconstruing when they say, “All things happen for a reason.”
[But I do want to add a caution here. We should not use God’s promise to "work all things out for good” to be lazy, to let ourselves make mistakes. Ah, so what if I mess up? He’ll use my mistakes for good, and it will all be alright in the end! We will face the consequences for our poor choices and our sins. And it was not predestined by God to happen; it will be our fault. But if we want to live the most abundant, God-glorifying life possible, we should be diligent about living as righteously and obediently as possible, abiding in God daily, heeding the Holy Spirit's guidance. But when we do make mistakes, we don't need to beat ourselves up about them or punish ourselves for it. Jesus already paid the price for all the sins we will ever commit. And so we should simply confess our sins, take responsibility for our mistakes and learn from them, return to God fully, and trust that He’ll make something good out of the messes we make. He promises to do this for those who love Him! You just need to trust Him to do it.]
Things related specifically to Calvinism:
Calvinists constantly go wrong by taking the phrase "God causes all things to work together for good" and reading it as "God causes all things." And they do this all the time. But there is a big difference between the two. But they do not see a distinction. Their misunderstanding of "sovereignty" tells them that God has to cause all things, even sin and evil, or else He's not God.
And they do not see a distinction between "cause" and "allow." They think knowing it will happen and allowing it to happen is the same thing as causing it to happen, simply because God could have stopped it but didn't.
But foreknowing it will happen and allowing it to happen is not the same thing as causing it to happen. In the first, God is not the cause of the bad thing, the sin or evil. He didn't necessarily want it to happen or plan it to happen. And it does not glorify Him. He simply gave us freedom to make our own choices, even though He knew we'd make bad ones. But in the second, He preplans and causes the sin or evil that He commands us not to do, that He punishes us for. He wanted it to happen. He gets glory from it. And this makes Him unjust, untrustworthy, a liar, wretched, no different than Satan, etc. Big, big difference!
A Calvinist asked this question on a post at Soteriology 101: “If God destines something to an end or permits it and sustains it to the same end, what is the difference?” (What he's asking is "What's the difference between God causing something or God simply letting it happen?" But Calvinists don't ask this because they really want to know the difference. They ask it rhetorically, as in "There is no difference because it doesn't change what happened.")
This was my reply to him: "What’s the difference between a God who allows someone to make their own decision to rape and kill, and who punishes them for their choice … and a God who causes someone to rape and kill, with no option to do anything different, but who then punishes that person for raping and killing?
What’s the difference between a God who genuinely offers salvation to all people, but who lets us make our own choice about if we want Him in our lives or not, and allows us to face the consequences of our choice … and a God who predestines our eternities and choices, who causes unbelievers to be unbelievers, who never gives unbelievers a chance to seek/find Him or to find salvation, and who then punishes unbelievers in hell for being the unbelievers He caused them to be?
If you can’t see a difference, what does that say about your view of God and the Gospel? Either that, or you’re just not thinking about it carefully enough.
Unfortunately and to the detriment of God's character and the Gospel, Calvinists think that a God who controls all things, even sin and evil, is more trustworthy, not less, because this makes Him so powerful that He even controls (they mean "causes") the bad things. They think if God didn't control all things, even sin and evil, then He wouldn't be totally powerful, which means we couldn't really totally trust Him.
As one Calvinist at Soteriology 101 said, “That being said why would anyone trust in God who isn’t in control of all things that come to pass, the only way to have unreserved faith without doubt is to pray, hope and believe in God who is on the throne.”
There is no comfort in the ridiculous, dangerous Calvinist idea that "God causes all things for a reason."
How could someone who was abused as a child take comfort in that? In knowing that not only did humans want to hurt them, but that their heavenly Father did too, that He wanted and planned for their abuse, that He caused other people to commit violent sins against them and against Him, but that He expects the abused person to trust Him and love Him anyway? Because, after all, He is "so in control" that He even causes our evil sins? And you can "trust a God who causes our evil sins," right?
(Trust Him for what? That He loves you? That He wants your best? That you can take Him at His Word? That He will fix all the evil He Himself caused? What kind of trust does a Calvinist think you are supposed to have in a God like that? And what do we base that trust on if God wants and causes the evil He commands us not to do, if He tells us He wants us to do one thing but causes us to do the opposite, and then punishes us for it? It's nonsense! Destructive, damaging, heretical, evil, God-dishonoring nonsense!)
This wouldn't make God trustworthy or loving or good. It would make Him a wretched, abusive monster who hurts people but demands that they love and trust and worship Him anyway!
And yet, this is the kind of "god" Calvinists worship and try to be like. Scary!
To me, Calvinists are like abused spouses, people who are constantly making up excuses to themselves for the abuser's behavior, excusing it or rationalizing it, certain that the abuser really does love them and is treating them out of love and righteous justice, convinced that they themselves are the ones in the wrong and that they deserve whatever abuse they get, sure that the abuser is trustworthy and will always be faithful to them.
This is the sick relationship between Calvi-god and the Calvinist!
So very, very sad!
But instead of being forced to find comfort in "God causes all things," we should be finding comfort in “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28).
This is the promise that we should be resting on, that God is truly a good, trustworthy God who never wanted evil to happen and who doesn't cause sin. He tells us what He wants us to do in His Word and has made it possible for all of us to do what He says, but He has allowed us to make our own choices, even bad ones. But He is watching over it all and, no matter what happens, He will redeem it in the end and use it for our good. If we trust Him. If we let Him. Evil was never His plan from the beginning but He knew it would happen (a natural result of giving us the free-will to make our own decisions), and so He planned a way to redeem all things, by dying on the cross in our place so that we could live. And someday, He will wipe away all tears and evil and sin and heartache, and all things will be healed and good and whole again. Because that's the life He wants for us!
This is a God you can trust!
But at the end of the day, whether we understand why something happened or not, whether He caused it (but He never causes sin) or allowed it, whether it seemed to have a reason or was seemingly senseless, we have to decide if we will turn our backs on God or if we will trust Him, if we will believe Him when He says that He will work it out for good or if we will get bitter and walk away from Him.
We oftentimes cannot know why God allowed something to happen, and we may never get to see the good that comes from it until eternity, and so we have to choose to go forward in faith, taking God at His Word, instead of viewing God through our bad circumstances and feelings.
And so the question becomes, "Do we really think God is good and that He loves us?"
If we do not believe that God is good or that He loves us, then we will not trust Him when bad things happen.
(And let's be honest, the Calvinist god is not good and cannot be trusted, no matter how much Calvinists try to deceive themselves into thinking he's good and they they love him and trust him.)
I think the bad times in our lives are some of the best times to figure out what we really think of God and what we think He really thinks of us.
We may not be able to change the bad times, but don't waste them. Use them to help you explore your thoughts and feelings about God. Bring those thoughts and feelings right to God, honestly. Ask Him to help you learn the truth about Him and about yourself, and to help you know how to go forward from here, to learn from the pain and grow through the trials.
(In fact, I wrote a "workbook" kind of study to help people work through the hang-ups and obstacles we have in our relationship with God, to help us get closer to Him. I based it on the things I did to work through my fears and doubts and self-esteem issues, the things that strained my relationship with Him.)
Did you ever see Forest Gump? It’s been a long time since I have, but there’s this part where Lieutenant Dan rails at God from the boat, fist waving in the air, shouting all sorts of angry things at Him. And I don’t remember exactly what he said, I just remember that it was with an attitude of “I’m angry with You. Let’s get it all out in the open now! We’re getting in the ring, gloves off! Bring it on, God! It’s You and me! Let’s do this!”
And I used to think, How horrible and disrespectful toward God. God must hate that! Lieutenant Dan would earn himself some serious punishment with that kind of displeasing, impolite outburst.
But as I’ve gotten older and learned more about God and learned to be more transparent with Him and let Him into the sealed-off parts of my heart, I now realize, Lieutenant Dan is doing it right! That’s what pleases God, more than quietly shrinking away from Him and hiding the hurt parts of our heart in order to be “pleasing” to Him, nursing our wounds in private. He’d rather have us rail at Him in all honesty than to pull back in a false form of trust and humility. He wants us to wrestle with Him, if wrestling is what will create a deeper relationship and stronger faith. He wants us to give it our all, to cling to the very end, to passionately throw ourselves at Him and not let go until He blesses us.
I think wrestling with God is something we will all have to do at some point in our lives, in the trials and heartaches and unanswered prayers and unfulfilled dreams and shattered hopes and the failures and doubts and fears and questions.
And it’s okay to wrestle with Him. In fact, I think He’d rather have us shake our fists at Him and scream out our fears and doubts and grab onto Him tightly, refusing to let go, even if it seems impolite and improper, than to have us put on a fake, compliant smile while our hearts are breaking or to turn away from Him in despair and grab on to something else.
He doesn't want a fake, polished version of us.
He wants us, the real us, messes and all!
Psalm 34:17-18: "The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears them; he delivers them from all their troubles. The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit."
I used to take comfort in the fact that God does whatever He wants to do and that God causes everything to happen for a reason. But if that’s not the case, then what?
I once heard about a mom and dad who were going away for vacation. They had to leave their nearly-adult teenager at home. They knew that he might end up making bad decisions; he might throw a party and do things that they didn’t want him to do. And they had the power to prevent that. They could have stayed home or sent Grandma over to watch him.
But in their wisdom, they knew that he was going to be an adult and on his own in college in just a year or so. And they realized that this was a good opportunity to test him and to see what decisions he would make. They encouraged him to choose wisely, and they hoped that he would choose wisely. Because they knew that was the best for him.
Now, if he chose to make mistakes, they would not have caused him to do it. They were allowing him to do it, but they weren’t causing it. But they allowed him the opportunity to make mistakes because they knew that they could use it to teach him life-lessons. Since he was still at home and under their care, they could use his mistakes to challenge him and grow him and help him find the right path, before he was let go into the world.
And that’s kind of how I believe God works with mankind. God gave us this world, told us the best way to live, and then let us decide to listen or not. But He does not cause our disobedience and the consequences of our bad choices and of the Fall. While it’s a fine distinction, I think that it is more accurate (in many instances) to say that God allows things for a reason, instead of causing things for a reason. And whatever God does allow, He allows because He knows that it can be can used for His good purposes, whether for us, for others, or for mankind, in general.
So, He might not cause it for His purposes, but He can and will use it for His purposes. And He can do this since He sees all of history at one time and can see how things can be worked together to accomplish His goals, something good. Of course, He wants us to choose the best way the first time around (and that will spare us a lot of heartache and trouble), but He can and will use our mistakes to make something good and He will incorporate them into His overall plans for us.
And just because He allows something bad to happen (say, cancer or a tornado) doesn’t mean that He always and necessarily wanted it to happen. Bad things are a part of living in a free-will, fallen world. But He knows that He can take it and use it for something good. If we let Him. If we trust Him.
(Yet let's not fool ourselves. God can and does cause things to happen that we don't like, but not sin or evil, when it serves His purpose. As God, He has that right.)
And if I may point out, God is definitely a God of healing in the Bible. We read so much about how He wants health for us, how Jesus healed and how the disciples were sent to heal. About how He desires that we have abundant lives, goodness, wholeness, as opposed to pain, illness, and heartache. How He desires eternal life for us all (as opposed to Calvi-god who wants eternal damnation for most).
But pain, illness, and heartache are a part of living in a fallen world. He didn’t plan or desire these things for us. (Not that He can’t or doesn’t ever cause them for a reason.) But they are consequences of our decisions and of Satan’s influence.
But God does promise to work all things, even the pain, for good ... for those who love Him. And this is the promise that you can take comfort in.
“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28).
And I think this is the verse that people are misconstruing when they say, “All things happen for a reason.”
[But I do want to add a caution here. We should not use God’s promise to "work all things out for good” to be lazy, to let ourselves make mistakes. Ah, so what if I mess up? He’ll use my mistakes for good, and it will all be alright in the end! We will face the consequences for our poor choices and our sins. And it was not predestined by God to happen; it will be our fault. But if we want to live the most abundant, God-glorifying life possible, we should be diligent about living as righteously and obediently as possible, abiding in God daily, heeding the Holy Spirit's guidance. But when we do make mistakes, we don't need to beat ourselves up about them or punish ourselves for it. Jesus already paid the price for all the sins we will ever commit. And so we should simply confess our sins, take responsibility for our mistakes and learn from them, return to God fully, and trust that He’ll make something good out of the messes we make. He promises to do this for those who love Him! You just need to trust Him to do it.]
Things related specifically to Calvinism:
Calvinists constantly go wrong by taking the phrase "God causes all things to work together for good" and reading it as "God causes all things." And they do this all the time. But there is a big difference between the two. But they do not see a distinction. Their misunderstanding of "sovereignty" tells them that God has to cause all things, even sin and evil, or else He's not God.
And they do not see a distinction between "cause" and "allow." They think knowing it will happen and allowing it to happen is the same thing as causing it to happen, simply because God could have stopped it but didn't.
But foreknowing it will happen and allowing it to happen is not the same thing as causing it to happen. In the first, God is not the cause of the bad thing, the sin or evil. He didn't necessarily want it to happen or plan it to happen. And it does not glorify Him. He simply gave us freedom to make our own choices, even though He knew we'd make bad ones. But in the second, He preplans and causes the sin or evil that He commands us not to do, that He punishes us for. He wanted it to happen. He gets glory from it. And this makes Him unjust, untrustworthy, a liar, wretched, no different than Satan, etc. Big, big difference!
A Calvinist asked this question on a post at Soteriology 101: “If God destines something to an end or permits it and sustains it to the same end, what is the difference?” (What he's asking is "What's the difference between God causing something or God simply letting it happen?" But Calvinists don't ask this because they really want to know the difference. They ask it rhetorically, as in "There is no difference because it doesn't change what happened.")
This was my reply to him: "What’s the difference between a God who allows someone to make their own decision to rape and kill, and who punishes them for their choice … and a God who causes someone to rape and kill, with no option to do anything different, but who then punishes that person for raping and killing?
What’s the difference between a God who genuinely offers salvation to all people, but who lets us make our own choice about if we want Him in our lives or not, and allows us to face the consequences of our choice … and a God who predestines our eternities and choices, who causes unbelievers to be unbelievers, who never gives unbelievers a chance to seek/find Him or to find salvation, and who then punishes unbelievers in hell for being the unbelievers He caused them to be?
If you can’t see a difference, what does that say about your view of God and the Gospel? Either that, or you’re just not thinking about it carefully enough.
As one Calvinist at Soteriology 101 said, “That being said why would anyone trust in God who isn’t in control of all things that come to pass, the only way to have unreserved faith without doubt is to pray, hope and believe in God who is on the throne.”
[My note: Of course, all Christians believe that God is on the throne. But what he means - what Calvinists mean - is "Why would anyone trust a God who isn't actively controlling all things?" Like Calvinist James White basically says in this clip, we supposedly can trust and have faith only if we know that God is controlling all those evil things, such as child rape. But if they happen without God causing them, then they are supposedly meaningless evils and we would be left in despair knowing that meaningless evils can happen outside of God's "control."
Umm, yeah, so instead it's SO MUCH BETTER to believe that we have a God who actively causes us to sin in the ways He forbids, who causes someone to rape an innocent child because (as my Calvinist pastor said about child abuse) "it's for your good, for His glory, and because He knew what needed to happen to you to humble you," and who then punishes us for the sins He forces us to do ... than to think that He simply allows people to make their own bad choices!?!
And that's the kind of God we are supposed to trust, love, and want to spend eternity with!?!
Frickin' insane!
And that's the kind of God we are supposed to trust, love, and want to spend eternity with!?!
Frickin' insane!
Essentially, Calvinism is "I know there's horrible abuses going on in this world and murders and evil, but at least you can take comfort in knowing that God caused them to happen. But that He'll punish them for it. We don’t have to understand it or like it; we just have to accept it. Now, let's praise Him for His goodness and faithfulness, and let’s go out there and try to be more like Him!"
And I repeat... "Frickin' insane!"
And I repeat... "Frickin' insane!"
Not to mention that, ironically, in Calvinism, the only way a person can have "unreserved faith without doubt" is if God causes them to have it. In Calvinism, nothing we do can affect the level or kind of faith we have - or even whether or not we have faith to begin with - because only God decides and controls that. If we have doubts or weak faith, it's because God causes us to have doubts and weak faith, and there's nothing we can do about it. If we fail to pray, it's because God preplanned and caused it. Calvinism shoots itself in the foot, negating or compromising every instruction or bit of advice it gives.]
Here is my reply to that Calvinist:
I would say “How can anyone trust Calvi-god when he lies about what his true Will is, when he causes people to sin and to do the opposite of what he commands, when he gives some people evanescent grace (fake salvation) so that he can more strongly damn them to hell, when he pretends to offer salvation to all and to give us a choice about it but then denies most people the chance to be saved, when he makes it sound like Jesus’s death paid for all sins when Calvi-Jesus really just died for a few people, when he tells us to seek him and believe in him even though he knows we can’t seek him or believe in him unless he causes us to, when he creates most people specifically for hell because it somehow highlights his justice, grace, and love, etc.?”
If that’s God “in control,” I’d hate to see God out of control!
The problem is not with God and His sovereignty. The problem is with the Calvinist view of God’s control, of His sovereignty. The Calvinist assumes that in order for God to be in control, He has to always be controlling/causing everything all the time. Or else He’s not God, according to their ideas of how God should be.
But it’s they who put their own presuppositions on God, who box Him in to how they think He has to be in order to be God.
But the Bible shows us a God who is “in control” and sovereign in a very different way. The God of the Bible has chosen to work in cooperation with mankind in various ways. He has chosen to give us real choices and to work our real decisions into His plans. He sometimes causes things to happen (but never sin) and sometimes simply allows things to happen, but He is over and above it all, knowing how to work all things (even our choices, our self-chosen obedience or disobedience) into His plans.
Calvi-god is a small, weak god who can’t handle any other factors than what he himself causes. But the God of the Bible is a very BIG, wise God who can work all things together for good, even things He doesn’t cause, the things He allows us to do all on our own, thing He never wanted to have happen.
There is no comfort in the ridiculous, dangerous Calvinist idea that "God causes all things for a reason."
How could someone who was abused as a child take comfort in that? In knowing that not only did humans want to hurt them, but that their heavenly Father did too, that He wanted and planned for their abuse, that He caused other people to commit violent sins against them and against Him, but that He expects the abused person to trust Him and love Him anyway? Because, after all, He is "so in control" that He even causes our evil sins? And you can "trust a God who causes our evil sins," right?
(Trust Him for what? That He loves you? That He wants your best? That you can take Him at His Word? That He will fix all the evil He Himself caused? What kind of trust does a Calvinist think you are supposed to have in a God like that? And what do we base that trust on if God wants and causes the evil He commands us not to do, if He tells us He wants us to do one thing but causes us to do the opposite, and then punishes us for it? It's nonsense! Destructive, damaging, heretical, evil, God-dishonoring nonsense!)
This wouldn't make God trustworthy or loving or good. It would make Him a wretched, abusive monster who hurts people but demands that they love and trust and worship Him anyway!
And yet, this is the kind of "god" Calvinists worship and try to be like. Scary!
To me, Calvinists are like abused spouses, people who are constantly making up excuses to themselves for the abuser's behavior, excusing it or rationalizing it, certain that the abuser really does love them and is treating them out of love and righteous justice, convinced that they themselves are the ones in the wrong and that they deserve whatever abuse they get, sure that the abuser is trustworthy and will always be faithful to them.
This is the sick relationship between Calvi-god and the Calvinist!
So very, very sad!
But instead of being forced to find comfort in "God causes all things," we should be finding comfort in “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28).
This is the promise that we should be resting on, that God is truly a good, trustworthy God who never wanted evil to happen and who doesn't cause sin. He tells us what He wants us to do in His Word and has made it possible for all of us to do what He says, but He has allowed us to make our own choices, even bad ones. But He is watching over it all and, no matter what happens, He will redeem it in the end and use it for our good. If we trust Him. If we let Him. Evil was never His plan from the beginning but He knew it would happen (a natural result of giving us the free-will to make our own decisions), and so He planned a way to redeem all things, by dying on the cross in our place so that we could live. And someday, He will wipe away all tears and evil and sin and heartache, and all things will be healed and good and whole again. Because that's the life He wants for us!
This is a God you can trust!
But at the end of the day, whether we understand why something happened or not, whether He caused it (but He never causes sin) or allowed it, whether it seemed to have a reason or was seemingly senseless, we have to decide if we will turn our backs on God or if we will trust Him, if we will believe Him when He says that He will work it out for good or if we will get bitter and walk away from Him.
We oftentimes cannot know why God allowed something to happen, and we may never get to see the good that comes from it until eternity, and so we have to choose to go forward in faith, taking God at His Word, instead of viewing God through our bad circumstances and feelings.
And so the question becomes, "Do we really think God is good and that He loves us?"
If we do not believe that God is good or that He loves us, then we will not trust Him when bad things happen.
(And let's be honest, the Calvinist god is not good and cannot be trusted, no matter how much Calvinists try to deceive themselves into thinking he's good and they they love him and trust him.)
I think the bad times in our lives are some of the best times to figure out what we really think of God and what we think He really thinks of us.
We may not be able to change the bad times, but don't waste them. Use them to help you explore your thoughts and feelings about God. Bring those thoughts and feelings right to God, honestly. Ask Him to help you learn the truth about Him and about yourself, and to help you know how to go forward from here, to learn from the pain and grow through the trials.
(In fact, I wrote a "workbook" kind of study to help people work through the hang-ups and obstacles we have in our relationship with God, to help us get closer to Him. I based it on the things I did to work through my fears and doubts and self-esteem issues, the things that strained my relationship with Him.)
Did you ever see Forest Gump? It’s been a long time since I have, but there’s this part where Lieutenant Dan rails at God from the boat, fist waving in the air, shouting all sorts of angry things at Him. And I don’t remember exactly what he said, I just remember that it was with an attitude of “I’m angry with You. Let’s get it all out in the open now! We’re getting in the ring, gloves off! Bring it on, God! It’s You and me! Let’s do this!”
And I used to think, How horrible and disrespectful toward God. God must hate that! Lieutenant Dan would earn himself some serious punishment with that kind of displeasing, impolite outburst.
But as I’ve gotten older and learned more about God and learned to be more transparent with Him and let Him into the sealed-off parts of my heart, I now realize, Lieutenant Dan is doing it right! That’s what pleases God, more than quietly shrinking away from Him and hiding the hurt parts of our heart in order to be “pleasing” to Him, nursing our wounds in private. He’d rather have us rail at Him in all honesty than to pull back in a false form of trust and humility. He wants us to wrestle with Him, if wrestling is what will create a deeper relationship and stronger faith. He wants us to give it our all, to cling to the very end, to passionately throw ourselves at Him and not let go until He blesses us.
I think wrestling with God is something we will all have to do at some point in our lives, in the trials and heartaches and unanswered prayers and unfulfilled dreams and shattered hopes and the failures and doubts and fears and questions.
And it’s okay to wrestle with Him. In fact, I think He’d rather have us shake our fists at Him and scream out our fears and doubts and grab onto Him tightly, refusing to let go, even if it seems impolite and improper, than to have us put on a fake, compliant smile while our hearts are breaking or to turn away from Him in despair and grab on to something else.
He doesn't want a fake, polished version of us.
He wants us, the real us, messes and all!
Psalm 34:17-18: "The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears them; he delivers them from all their troubles. The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit."
For the posts in this series, see the "Understanding God's Will" label in the sidebar (or find the original series, without the Calvinism info, by clicking here).
