"The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away." It was Job who said that, I think. Dude was having a hard go of it, what with all his kids dying and all. And he says, The Lord did this!
No attitude can be farther from modern evangelicalism in America than this. We're all about the Lord giveth, but it is not possible, apparently for the Lord to taketh away, at least he wouldn't do that to good, praying Christians.
We just don't go there. It seems to indicate a lack of faith.
That the Lord takes away is a very hard lesson. We want to say that it is the devil who takes away. We live and pray as if the verse said, The Lord giveth, and the devil taketh away (that is if we don't pray enough, obey enough, go to church enough, etc.).
Just listen to the way we pray for people who have life-threatening conditions. The language we use often reveals that we believe that there is a battle between God and the devil for the life of the person in question. The devil brought the life-threatening condition, but we're praying for God to win the battle and restore health to the person. Moreover, we're to believe God will do this, because that's what faith is all about, right? Believing God will do the good thing that we desire.
It's as if we see ourselves as under God's umbrella, which protects us from the rain of hard things. But if illness and death are threatening, that must mean that for some mysterious reason (owing no doubt to the devil) the umbrella wasn't protecting us.
Of course all this sets us up for a major faith crisis when a loved one dies. Instead of God taketh away we cry, How could God let this happen!
I am not, by the way, arguing for stoicism. Job was no stoic. But I'm wondering aloud how the truth that it is God who takes life away (as well as gives life) should affect how we think and pray and live.
In Genesis 3 God actually ordains hardship and mortality for Adam and Eve and their descendants. Which means us. Jesus didn't rescind that order for believers, but his mission and ministry, his life and death and resurrection, taken together, shows us the ultimate context of suffering and death in this world. We see death in a new light. The context is not a battle between the devil and God in which sometimes God wins (and we live) and sometimes the devil (and we die). We need to see our own sorrow, pain, hardship, and even our dying in the context of the God's unfolding redemptive plan, which by the way defeated death as an enemy (for those who "look to Jesus") back about 2000 years ago, on a hill called Calvary.
Showing posts with label God's plan of redemption. Show all posts
Showing posts with label God's plan of redemption. Show all posts
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Saturday, April 26, 2008
They Call Me the Midnight Scribbler
Last night I couldn't sleep (dang coffee at 5:00 in the afternoon!), so I got up and began scribbling in my journal. The wifey says that words just flow out of me. I need an outlet or they get pent up, then lookout, he's gonna blow!
Anyway, I got up and started scribbling. Here's a slightly refined version of what I scribbled:
I think that when God cast Adam and Eve out of paradise, the serpent thought he had them exactly where he wanted them. The "pinnacle of creation" was now the nadir. Now facing the grim prospect of life in decay, scratching a meager living from the earth, Eve giving birth in great pain, surely bitterness would overcome them and these so beloved of God would turn on him roundly, cursing their maker for what He'd done.
I think that's what the serpent was hoping for. Sure, he knew that God had a "plan of redemption" for this pitiful couple and their descendants -- but in the meantime the evidence of their unworthiness would accrue.
But then in Genesis 4:1 we read of that first child born -- no doubt in great and very startling pain to Eve -- and Eve says, "I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord!" You see, though she had been cast out of paradise, she knew somehow that she and her husband were not completely beyond his safekeeping.
Oh, that must have galled the serpent. Later that first child would turn on his brother and become the first murderer, and just think of the new level of bitterness and near despair that must have caused for Adam and Eve. We don't know much more about them after that, except that they had more children, and their children grew and bore children, and all of this in the midst of great pain and disorder. And then,in the seventh generation, there came Enoch, who walked with God (Gen. 4:21).
That's a little mysterious to me. What does it mean that Enoch, quite uniquely it seems, walked with God. Adam and Eve had walked with God in the garden, but they had been cast out. There was no going back. But somehow, in a way that at least resembled the kind of communion that his first father and mother had had with the Lord, Enoch too could be said to have walked with God.
I think this was a great step in God's plan of redemption, a great precedent. Even in that ancient dispensation, a relationship of intimacy with God was possible. Enoch proved it. The serpent, that old enemy, must have raged!
Why is all this significant? Because the plan of redemption that God set in motion even as he cast Adam and Eve away from his presence was in motion right from the start. God's redemptive plan, which would manifest itself supremely in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, was manifesting itself even then, in Eve's time, and in Enoch's. God had a plan, and it's trumped Satan's gambit. Through many thousands of years that plan has been unfolding, and it is, as they say, the greatest story ever told.
Anyway, I got up and started scribbling. Here's a slightly refined version of what I scribbled:
I think that when God cast Adam and Eve out of paradise, the serpent thought he had them exactly where he wanted them. The "pinnacle of creation" was now the nadir. Now facing the grim prospect of life in decay, scratching a meager living from the earth, Eve giving birth in great pain, surely bitterness would overcome them and these so beloved of God would turn on him roundly, cursing their maker for what He'd done.
I think that's what the serpent was hoping for. Sure, he knew that God had a "plan of redemption" for this pitiful couple and their descendants -- but in the meantime the evidence of their unworthiness would accrue.
But then in Genesis 4:1 we read of that first child born -- no doubt in great and very startling pain to Eve -- and Eve says, "I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord!" You see, though she had been cast out of paradise, she knew somehow that she and her husband were not completely beyond his safekeeping.
Oh, that must have galled the serpent. Later that first child would turn on his brother and become the first murderer, and just think of the new level of bitterness and near despair that must have caused for Adam and Eve. We don't know much more about them after that, except that they had more children, and their children grew and bore children, and all of this in the midst of great pain and disorder. And then,in the seventh generation, there came Enoch, who walked with God (Gen. 4:21).
That's a little mysterious to me. What does it mean that Enoch, quite uniquely it seems, walked with God. Adam and Eve had walked with God in the garden, but they had been cast out. There was no going back. But somehow, in a way that at least resembled the kind of communion that his first father and mother had had with the Lord, Enoch too could be said to have walked with God.
I think this was a great step in God's plan of redemption, a great precedent. Even in that ancient dispensation, a relationship of intimacy with God was possible. Enoch proved it. The serpent, that old enemy, must have raged!
Why is all this significant? Because the plan of redemption that God set in motion even as he cast Adam and Eve away from his presence was in motion right from the start. God's redemptive plan, which would manifest itself supremely in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, was manifesting itself even then, in Eve's time, and in Enoch's. God had a plan, and it's trumped Satan's gambit. Through many thousands of years that plan has been unfolding, and it is, as they say, the greatest story ever told.
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