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Yesterday I did something I don’t do often – I watched the news. I tuned in after hearing about the Uvalde Elementary School shooting that has so far left 19 dead, most of which are children between the ages of 8 and 10.
As the commentators asked their questions and reported the story they spoke of the dramatic rise in school shootings and violent crime in general. Possible solutions were mentioned as you could read the desperation on each face to find an answer to what is happening. Some suggestions were as simple as just being more loving and kind to one another and some were as deep as the impact of fatherless homes. The shooter was 18 years old and is reported to have shot his grandmother before going to the school, which brings me to the title question,
“What’s the matter with God?”
One question. A thousand interpretations.
We have taken His ideas, His ways, His perspective of this life and painted them as restrictive, controlling and outright wrong all while looking evil in the face and calling it good!
I issue a challenge to those who call evil good and good evil, to those who claim that God is mean and manipulative…
Have you READ the Bible? The whole thing!
Have you considered His ways enough to try living by them? Really and truly lived them out and found fault with them or found them deceptive or lacking?
Have we as a country forgotten that it was founded on the ways and ideas of the God of the Bible?
We have exchanged the ways of God for the thoughts and understanding of man.
Think of it: God, the all-knowing, ever-present deity, Who is separate and apart from us, Who is not defined or controlled by us or our ideas has been honest and open with us from the beginning. He has also laid out a “best practice” for living. Have any lived according to the grace and love He offers and found it lacking in any good thing?
Galatians 5 says this:
19-21 “It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community. I could go on.”
Sound familiar? Are you seeing this type of “fruit” pretty much everywhere you look right now?
Well, let’s not stop there:
22-23 “But what happens when we live God’s way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely.
23-24 Legalism is helpless in bringing this about; it only gets in the way. Among those who belong to Christ, everything connected with getting our own way and mindlessly responding to what everyone else calls necessities is killed off for good—crucified.
25-26 Since this is the kind of life we have chosen, the life of the Spirit, let us make sure that we do not just hold it as an idea in our heads or a sentiment in our hearts, but work out its implications in every detail of our lives. That means we will not compare ourselves with each other as if one of us were better and another worse. We have far more interesting things to do with our lives. Each of us is an original.”
The verses above are from The Message translation of the Bible and say it more concisely than I ever could but I will attempt to add some insight.
It’s been proven many times over on every level of health (physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually) that boundaries help children thrive and grow in a safe environment yet we wonder and act shocked when younger and younger people prove capable of such heinous acts of violence as the Texas shooting. We go on promoting and being a friend to our child in an effort to give them as much autonomy as possible as early as possible instead of being their parent, teaching them to manage their emotions without resorting to violence and other life skills.
The world wants to do away with the idea of any intelligent, purposeful, loving origin of life but then wail and “wonder” why people do what they do when it comes to evil. Have you noticed that they have NO ANSWER for stopping or reducing the frequency of events like this?
This is the mindset of the world today:
I don’t like the truth you are telling me or the consequences you are reminding me will
take place if I make certain choices so I am going to rage against it, deny it and scream
in the face of it even though it does nothing to change the facts of the truth or the
consequences of my choices.
It is so incredibly destructive and mentally unhealthy and unhelpful. Yet it runs rampant among people of all ages today but mostly the up and coming generations whose parents bought into the idea that it is better to be their children’s friend than parent.
I mentioned earlier that this country, The United States of America was founded on the God of the Bible and how He instructs us to live. In making that statement, I am in no way saying it has done so perfectly. That is an impossible feat as it is in our own personal lives as Christ followers. But I am most clearly saying that we started out headed in the right direction but we have slowly given over to the agenda of our enemy.
Here is Galatians 5 again only this time from the New American Standard version:
22 “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. “
We have become so afraid to define “right and wrong” that even children can no longer trust their own anatomy. They have been stripped of even the most basic of foundational truths. Now they are taught that they can trust no one and nothing. It’s all up to them to figure out: their gender, their sexual orientation, their identity, their life. The safety of “home” is all but gone. And yet we wonder why children, at an increasingly younger and younger age are literally cracking under the pressure!
There is not a soul on this planet that I would not sit down with to discuss the possibility of God having the answer or at least some sound, wise direction for solving every issue we have in this world today!
I am not saying I have all the answers but I believe God does. I am not saying He gives them all to us when we want them, but I believe someday He will answer every single one AND tell us why He didn’t give the answers when we wanted them.
Can we at least open our eyes enough to see where the current teachings/narratives are headed?
The bottom line is that there is good and there is evil and both are known/identified by their fruit.
You can close your eyes to it, scream in its face, deny its existence but none of that changes it…
TRUTH STILL PREVAILS.
When you tell me I am “wrong” for stating that there is a universal truth that can be known by way of a relationship with Jesus Christ because you believe there is no absolute right or wrong, aren’t you violating what you say you believe??
But life in Christ and living God’s way has an answer even for that! You see, if we all were trying to live by what the Bible says, then we would NEVER have an issue with one another. If we all just tried to live by the clearest, most basic instructions He offers, even the parts we don’t fully understand are reconcilable among ourselves because our “beef” would never be with each other, it would only be with God!
How amazing to know that we can take it up with God, not out on each other.
But alas, we have an enemy who is against everything God is for.
His only goal is to steal, kill and destroy and to teach, trick and show us how to do likewise.
To be honest, I struggle to understand, especially on days like today in the aftermath of what has happened in Texas, why God didn’t stop it. Why He hasn’t come back yet. How much longer, how much more suffering must happen before He comes to set everything right as He promised so long ago. Being a Christ follower does not mean you don’t have questions or that you gain full understanding of how God moves and works the moment you accept Jesus’ sacrifice as payment for your sins.
What I do find is that He levels the playing field among us humans. When I think you are wrong or vice versa, how do we solve it without the Truth? Where do we go? To the dictates of our own conscience? In that case, one of us is still deciding ultimate truth for the other, are we not?
But when we all have access to God’s truth, a truth separate and apart from us, then we have no reason to direct our anger or rage at one another.
But peaceful living doesn’t happen apart from some sort of universal truth.
Now more than any other time in history, we are touting that the ability to choose and live “our own truth” (MY truth) as the ultimate in happiness. The narrative being pushed is that if everyone is able to choose what feels right and good to them without being influenced, taught, pressured or bullied by anyone or anything then the world’s issues would dissolve away like snowfall on a warm day. This is simply untrue.
This narrative is lacking on so many levels but one doesn’t have to look to hard to see the fruit that its producing: higher suicide rates among younger and younger people, violence on the rise, etc.
Let me ask you a question. What kind of person is the easiest to trust?
Is it easier to trust someone who seems to want to keep details to themselves?
Do you find it easy to trust someone who lies?
Can you fully trust someone who can’t deliver on promises they’ve made to you?
What about someone who lies about the outcome and what to expect? Someone who didn’t tell you the truth because they didn’t want to risk you saying no to them or rejecting them?
There are only 2 forces at work in this world. Even a casual glance at the fruit will tell you which is which.
From the beginning, and I mean THE VERY BEGINNING, God has told us the truth. He mentions over and over in the book of Isaiah that “He revealed ahead of time what would happen” or “what was to come”. I didn’t really get why He repeated that phrase so much until just now. Several times He even says, I told you unpleasant things SO THAT you would remember and KNOW that I alone am God. He didn’t even hide those things from us because He loves us and wants us to make the decision to follow Him or not based on the whole Truth.
The Truth is that He has dealt with us fairly from the very beginning. He warned us of our enemy. He foretold the consequences of our choices before we chose them. He has given explicit detail not only of our future home in heaven but also of what would happen to us if we choose to reject His gift of salvation.
Is that what we don’t like?
A God Who has never had anything to hide?
Is it just so far from how we live down here that we can’t make sense of it?
Is it easier to make the Truth out to be too harsh since we are faced with the knowledge that we alone have 100% responsibility to choose which way we will live out this life?
Remember we have an enemy who would like nothing more than for us to think that a God Who gives us the WHOLE, UNADULTERATED truth SO THAT we can make the most educated decision possible is somehow unkind and unloving in doing so.
This morning, through discussion and tears my husband and I wrestled together through questions of God’s goodness, through what we would have done if we were Him, if we were in charge. We forced ourselves to imagine if we were one of the parents who lost a child in yesterday’s tragedy. How would we process it all? What would dictate where we land and the choices we would make after the shock and anger wore off? What can even stand up to that kind of loss and trauma?
For me, it comes down to this: I choose, as I have in the past to live according to God’s way revealed to me in His Word and by His Holy Spirit. Any other choice, means I have switched to my enemies side. If I choose unforgiveness, hatred, revenge, bitterness or the like, then I have rejected the Truth and chosen to sow into my enemies way of living this life.
If I have understood the Bible correctly, He never promises a life free from death, trauma or struggle but He does promise to help me through ALL that comes my way. May He protect and comfort my children and grandchildren as I commit them into His hands of love and, if necessary trust Him for the answers if anything should befall them that I do not understand.
May God help us to live open and honest lives and follow the example He set.
May He be with each and every person who has been touched by this tragedy (hopefully that is every single soul on the planet) and may we see Him more clearly.
May we start asking “What’s the matter with God?” and start listening for Him to answer.
P.S. One of the best descriptions of this world, God’s sovereignty and the importance of adhering to TRUTH that is separate and apart from any human being is Frank Peretti’s talk, The Chair from 2014.
This is the link to the first video. I think it is broken into 3 different ones and you can find the others on YouTube as well.
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