Barnabas

VII. WHEN WE LEAVE GOD

The text is taken from the Book of Hosea.

There was a man married to a harlot. Much like Hosea of the Old Testament, his wife continuously and constantly left him to lead a life full of sin, to return to a dark existence having once tasted what it was like to be loved unconditionally. I can imagine the conversation. I think she was totally open with him about leaving. There were times I am sure she left his be without so much as a “I’ll see you later”. But on one particular night, I can see them picking at their dinner because the tension is so thick it could be cut with a knife. I suspect our friend, being human, got fed up with her and confronted her, saying, “I can’t go on like this. Choose me or…” I can see his eyes tearing up, as he turns away. Then she promises and promises and smiles at him, lifting up his chin saying, “Let’s try again”. And so they do. For a while things appear to be resolving, and maybe this time, maybe this time, she’ll be faithful because she knows there is none better than her husband. Maybe this time, she’ll look to God and say, “I really want to do this. Help me so that I can change. I cannot change myself. You made me. You can change me. I really want to serve you…” Maybe she is faithful for a while, realizing there is none better, and that God indeed will help her and can change her.

But then, she leaves, again. It seems as though there is a new guy in town. And how handsome she thinks he is! And charming too! She gives in to his flirtations with her, because she reverts to her old ways of not believing that God can truly change her. She in fact believes that God does not want her to change, that she was made to continually lust and seek a sinful life.

And her husband weeps.

And God weeps too just like that, every time we leave. Because we have chosen to believe there is a God who obviously doesn’t think highly enough of us to stop us, or take the thorn from our side. Who put the thorn there to begin with, and who allowed satan to rule the earth? Who made satan? If God was that great of a God, why doesn’t He swoop down and save us? If He is that great of a God, why is there suffering and pain? Why are we the way we are, if in fact we are created in His image?

Sound familiar? Some of the same questions people mockingly asked of Jesus on the cross, or the Pharisees asked of Jesus, or, in fact, satan asked of Jesus during his 40 days in the desert. The temptation to not believe God was tremendous and at time it was hard to focus, if Jesus, and we as His followers, had not known, the Father and His promises, which were, and are still today, true. It is the same temptation we go through when we are His followers. After all, when there are a million bits of information hitting us from friends, from the world, and from satan, it is hard not to stay confused. We want to do the right thing, we want to be fair, we want to demonstrate love, but it is difficult at best to endure all the background noise of “ME”, or “I can’t help who I am”, or “God must not understand my problems”. It is a struggle not to act like a spoiled child, especially in this day and age, especially in the country in which we live. We’ve been blessed more than we think, and then when we have to endure trial, we search our lives to see if there is something we’ve done wrong. Not finding anything obvious or that we think is obvious, we blame God for putting us into whatever we are in, whether it is a bad situation that truly is not our fault, or it is a sin that for some reason we have rationalized is really not all that bad, but nevertheless makes us feel ashamed deep down for what we’ve done to the Father. We blame God all the more for the guilty feelings to which we are subjected. It is so easy then to rely on our intellect and snowball the whole situation into massive confusion to where we are really running in place and getting nowhere because we’ve forgotten Jesus. We may indeed know Jesus, having been saved from our sins by His blood. We certainly say we love Jesus. But do we really? If we really loved Him, wouldn’t we believe what He says about God? Wouldn’t we believe the promises of God are true? It is indeed a step in faith and no amount of our reasoning will give us belief. After all, without Him, He says, there is no hope for anyone. Do we believe that? Truly?

When we leave God, we are really trying to convince ourselves that all this Christianity business is not what it is cracked up to be, that there is something better in the immediate environment. That is the saddest notion of all. We’ve given up, on ourselves and our capacity in God to withstand temptation (for He doesn’t give us anything we cannot handle and always provides us a way out, as Paul writes in I Corinthians 10:13). We’ve given up on our brothers and sisters in Christ. We are convinced that they will leave us because of the way we look at things. The truth is our family in Christ loves us, because they are committed to do so by Christ’s love. Our family in Christ realizes that they are no different from us and are subject to the sins we are and so there is no judgment.

Finally, we’ve given up on God, who, through the eternal and immortal instrument of the resurrection of His Son, does indeed save all of us, does reach His hand to all of us, no matter what the sin, even if we are like Jeffrey Dahmer. But God never gives up on us. And His hands are always extended. We just have to have the will and self-control to follow Him. And pray to Him to help us in our unbelief (Mark 9:24). And believe that what He says is true.

Praise God for His great mercy. And may we never forget it.