What might that be?
Simply stated: trading places with God
That might sound like an unlikely thing to do, but we do it without
considering that it’s going on. It
happens whenever we think we understand something about God from reading
Scripture, hearing a teaching, or from life experience, and what appears to be
true about God is unpleasant, inconsistent, unfair, unmerciful, or in some
other way not what we think God should be.
Rather than holding to the position that God is holy, which
means He is flawless and perfectly faithful, we question His character or power. What results from that is we feel free—even
responsible to trust our own judgment and make our own independent decisions,
at least until we get our concerns about God satisfied and become assured that
God is better than we currently perceive Him to be.
One of the big issues on which we don’t have satisfactory
understanding and which causes us to hold God in question is, “Is God really
fair?” i.e. What about people who have
never heard of Jesus? What about people
who are raised in abusive, dysfunctional circumstances and are given a
distorted view of God? Why do good
people suffer and evil people sometimes seem to thrive? Why are there birth defects, accidents,
diseases, natural disasters, etc.?
Several other questions stem from reading passages of Scripture which
are difficult to understand or seem to say things contradictory the image we
want to have of God.
Someone said, “God created man in His own image, and man
returns the favor.” Without even being
aware that we are doing it, we easily slip into the judgment seat and put God
on trial. While hesitating to condemn
Him, we have a hard time releasing Him until more evidence gives us confidence
to determine the proper outcome of His trial.
I think many people live most of their lives in suspension of trust in
God. We are willing to ask Him for
things, and do it almost with an attitude of giving Him a chance to prove
Himself by giving us what we want. But
obeying His commands when they aren’t what we want to do or when they seem very
difficult is where we often get stymied.
We just don’t have the faith in Him that full obedience calls for.
So, what’s to be done?
More on this to come in another blog.
