Have you
ever seen someone you care about, maybe even someone you love, about to make a
bad decision? I’m not talking about something small here, either. I’m talking about watching someone you care
about getting ready to do something that you know is really going to cause them
some major problems. And you try to talk to them, and they don’t want to
listen. You try to point out all the
dangers, and they just won’t hear it.
And finally, there’s nothing more you can say. You have to let them do what they’re
determined to do, even though you know it’s not going to work. And not only
is it not going to work, it’s going to haunt them for years to come. You feel sad about it, but there’s just
nothing you can do to stop them.
I suspect this is something that parents, especially, can
relate to. Because as kids grow, they make choices, and sometimes they
make bad choices. Not always--they make good choices, too, sometimes. But sometimes they make bad choices, and
sometimes the more you try to tell them they’ve made bad choices the more
determined they are to keep making them. And there’s nothing you can do
but just let them do it their way, continue to love them, and be ready to help
pick up the pieces when things fall apart.
You feel sad about it, because no parent wants to see their children get
themselves into trouble. But there’s just nothing you can do to stop them. That’s got to be one of the hardest things a
parent ever has to do.
So now, imagine how God must feel when you and I make bad
choices like that. God gave us free will.
God gave us the ability to make choices about our lives. God also
gave us the ability to either accept Him or reject Him. God gave us the ability to decide that we’re
going to love God, rely on God, trust God and do our best to be faithful to God
and serve God. God also gave us the ability to decide that we’re not
going to do those things. God gave us
the ability to decide that we’re going to love some other sort of god, to rely
on some other sort of god, and to serve some other sort of god. God also
gave us the ability to decide that there’s no god at all, and to decide to
serve ourselves and trust ourselves.
God gave us the ability to make those choices, and God will
not interfere with the choices we make. God could, you know. God could force us to rely on Him, to trust
Him, to serve Him. I mean, God is
God. God can do anything God chooses to do. But God does not force us. God may give us some nudges once in a
while. God may do some things to try to lead us in the right direction. But God does not force us. God allows us to go our own way, to do our
own thing, and to make the choices we want to make.
But I think God is sad when we make those bad
choices. And I think that sadness comes through in Psalm 81.
God, speaking through the author of the psalm, reminds us
of all God has done for us. God says, “I removed the burden from their
shoulders; their hands were set free from the basket. In your distress
you called and I rescued you. I answered
you...Hear, my people, and I will warn you--if you would only listen to me...I
am the Lord your God, who brought you up out of Egypt. Open wide your
mouth and I will fill it.”
God is pleading with the people. God is pleading with
us, really. God is saying, look, I’ve
always taken care of you. I’ve always made things easier for you. I’ll do it again. All you need to do is trust me and listen to
me. Your life would go so much easier if you would just do things My way.
But the people of that time would not listen, just as we so
often don’t listen. God goes on to say, “But my people would not listen
to me. [They] would not submit to
me. So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts, to follow their own
desires.”
I just think you can hear the sadness in God’s voice when
God says that. It sounds to me like God really does not like allowing us
to make those bad choices. God does not like allowing us to follow our
own desires. Not because God wants to be
a dictator and make us do things God’s way, but because God knows it’s not
going to go well for us if we follow our own desires rather than listening to
God. But again, God has given us the ability to make choices and God is
not going to take that ability away from us.
So, God allows us to do what we want to do. God allows us to follow our own desires.
God lets us know the good things we’re missing out
on. God says, “If my people would only listen to me...how quickly I would
subdue their enemies...you would be fed with the finest of wheat; with honey
from the rock I would satisfy you.”
God wants to give us so many good things. I’m not
saying that faith in God guarantees us an easy, carefree life. The Bible
does not promise that. But God does that
God’s ways will work out better for us than our ways ever will. Maybe not
in the short-term. There are times when
we need to give up certain short-term pleasures in order to serve God and be
faithful to God. But in the long-term, it will be worth it. And in the eternal term, it will be worth it
all the more.
But that’s the problem. Human beings tend not to be
eternal-term thinkers. We’re not even long-term thinkers, really. And that’s why we tend to fall away from God
and chase after other things. We like things that will make us happy now. We like things that will bring us pleasure
now. We like things that will help us
achieve our goals now. And if God does not give us those things now, then
we tend to go off on our own. We follow
our own desires, rather than following God.
So, what do we do? Well, as I was thinking about
this, a Bible verse came to my mind. It’s actually just a part of a
verse. In fact, it’s just three
words. But they may be three of the most important words in the Bible.
Are you familiar with First Corinthians Chapter
Thirteen? It’s called the love chapter.
It gets used a lot at weddings. It’s the one that talks about it
doesn’t matter if we can speak in tongues, or if we’re great prophets, or if
we’re incredibly generous, or anything else. It says if we don’t have
love, none of it matters. And then come
the three words that may help with this.
Those words are these: “love is patient.”
Love is patient. Think about how patient God is with
you and me. That’s why God continues to allow us to have free will,
despite all the times we misuse it and make bad decisions. Because God is
patient with us. God believes in
us. God believes in you, and God
believes in me. And so God will allow us
to go our own way. God will patiently keep working with us. God will keep trying to get our
attention. God will keep nudging
us. God will keep trying to influence us
to trust Him, to be faithful to Him, to rely on Him. God will be patient
with us, because God loves us.
And sometimes we need to be patient with God, too.
Not that God ever makes bad decisions, of course. But we need to be patient with God when we
feel like we’re doing our best to serve God, and to be faithful to God, and it
seems like nothing is happening. We need to be patient with God when we
feel like we’re following God and yet it seems like things are getting worse
instead of better. We need to be patient
and trust that God is at work even when we cannot see that God is doing
anything. We need to be patient and trust God when we’re tempted to take
short-cuts and try to make things happen on our time schedule, rather than on
God’s schedule. If we love God, we will
be patient with God and allow things to happen in God’s way and in God’s
time. And we will trust that God’s ways and God’s timing are always
better than ours.
God created everything in life, including you and me.
That means God knows more about life than we do. And that means that God knows the best ways
for us to live our lives. It also means that God wants what’s best for
us, and that God wants to give us what’s best for us. But God won’t force us to follow God.
God will allow us to go our own way, to follow our own desires, if that’s what
we choose to do.
God loves us, and so God is patient with us. Let’s
love God, and let’s show that love by being patient with God. Let’s wait
for God to act in God’s way and in God’s time.
Let’s trust that, if we do, God will be there for us. God is a
long-term God. Let’s be long-term
Christians.
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