Why Didn't God Protect Us?#
God gave no thought to create His precious children and stand back, to simply gaze at us in some remote besotted manner from a distance. What loving parent would do that? I could only ever imagine a parent doing that for one reason - their child has asked them to get out of their life:
“I can do it my way. I don’t need you anymore. You don’t measure up. Go away”.
This is a convenient lens through which to view the world. We dismiss God to the sidelines and reinvent a more suitable god in His place. This new god can be uncorked at useful times like personal illness, family tragedy, horse races and footy games.
“God is watching us” has become a verbal sleight of hand, a platitude meaning:
- He has chosen to be distant
- He is indifferent, disinterested and powerless
- He is not really watching us at all, but it is a nice thing to say, OR
- He is one step up from an imaginary friend – only there when I need him.
The daughter of Billy Graham, Annie Graham Lotz was once asked on a TV chat show, convened especially to discuss the Twin Towers horror in New York - Why didn’t God protect us?
She deftly replied:
“For years we've been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives. And being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out. How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?”
God does not to choose to watch us from a distance, we chose God to watch us from a distance. We just cannot choose that He will not watch us at all, His love guarantees this.
His love does not need to be tested. It has already been proved 2000 years ago on a cross, on a hill, outside Jerusalem.
We have asked God to leave and so He left – but we are never out of His eyesight.
He loves us too much, He cannot take His eyes from us, but never from a distance unless we ask Him to. He has a good plan for us, observing each of us with pride, and sometimes disappointment. He is ready to defend us, and sometimes even He permits us to make mistakes.
That’s what good parents do.
He may be bottled in our mind's, laws and values, but outrageously He has never returned the favor and bottled us from His heart.
Today's Soul Snippet:
Life is not a playground, it is a battleground.
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ALSO ENJOY God the Impersonater?
#Today's SoulSnack is reproduced with SoulSupply edits and gracious permission from Dr Stuart Quarmby.