try not to blink.
Sometimes life can look funny. Even cruel. And so can God.
We as humans have a long and sorted past in placing more weight on what we see than what we know to be true.
The problem isn’t with God. Nor is it with life.
It’s with our perspective.
Try adjusting your goggles. (It’ll help you notice the friends around you, too). ch:
If I wasn’t a Christian already, I might think God was angry. A lot. And all the time.
Gleaning from a lot of things I’d read as an “unbeliever” scripted by “believers,” I’d say God uses catastrophic weather to judge nations, car bombs to get Christians to pray, and elected politicians to bring humanity what they deserve. And why not? I mean, Biblical passages like this clearly portray God as having anger issues:
“For all this His anger is not turned away, but His hand is stretched out still.” Isaiah 9:21b
So let me put the Christian hat back on. Scripture is clear, God gets angry. But the question worth addressing to myself as a Believer, and to those currently outside of the Christian faith, is not what causes God to get angry (everything from unrighteousness to disobedience; see Deuteronomy 11:17; 29:24-28; Ezra 8:22; Nehemiah 13:18 just for starters), but what God’s anger provokes in terms of action.
The reality is, when God got angry, he sent his son Jesus to pay the price for everything humanity ever did to “rouse his anger” in the first place. Let me simplify:
When God gets angry, he displays ultimate mercy.
Huh. Doesn’t sound quite like the God we Christians portray so very well in modern society.
And me? I get angry and do what? I get ticked off at a politician and what comes out of my mouth? An employee disobeys me and I treat them how? I watch a whole nation embrace a system of belief that enslaves people and I pray in what manner for their persecutors? I see someone willfully reject Christ, and I think what of them?
I challenge you to think less of what provokes God to anger and more of what anger provokes God to do.
It might just change the way you perceive a Heavenly Father who is actually good all the time with mercy that endures forever. (At least, that’s what the Bible claims about him). ch:
Q: Be honest. How do you respond when you get angry? And where do you need to improve? Have you been looking at God’s character improperly?
In the months and years since the birth of my kids, I have been inspired by a few truths about fatherhood that all have one thing in common – they are all attributes of MY father in HEAVEN. I’m sure there are many more than these, but for now, I’d like to list just 5 things that I have learned about God since becoming a dad.5
The only words I can use to compare my life before and after the birth of my first child are these: “Drastically different!” From the moment my little girl was born, everything changed. I’m not talking about the physical changes or the late nights or the non-stop supply of spit rags & dirty clothes…I’m talking about inside me. Everything within me had changed. I was a different person. I was given a new identity. I was a father and I knew only one thing: I LOVE MY DAUGHTER! If I, a broken, damaged, forgetful and insensitive guy could love something as much as I love my little girl, HOW MUCH MORE would God, our own Father in Heaven, love us?!
I’m sorry, did I just repeat myself? Looks like I did. Don’t skip over this! You think this is not important? I’ll say it another way. If you get this point wrong, you will misinterpret everything else that God does in your life! What’s worse, if we don’t understand how great our heavenly father’s love for us is, not only will we will misinterpret Him, but we will misrepresent him to everyone we meet!
When I said that I changed when I became a dad, I wasn’t kidding. I started acting weird. I started making strange noises. I started spending my hard-earned cash on the craziest things. Why? Because I found an addiction. I was addicted to the happiness of my kids! I would do anything (and I mean ANYTHING!) to make them smile and my wife was no better. We would buy them gifts for no reason, clothes they wouldn’t fit into for another 6 months, flowers that would create an endless trail of petals around the house and more for no other reason than to see that smile! I discovered the source of God’s need for extravagance.
Something my wife and I agreed on when she became pregnant was that we did not want our lifestyle to finish. Adapt and change, yes. End, no! So we modified our hobbies to include our kids. We were, and still are, avid hikers, so we donned our child-carrying backpacks and chose some easier trails but all so we could include them in our passions. Ever joined someone on something they are passionate about? Pretty soon, you become passionate about it. It’s the same with our kids and it’s the same with God. When we join God in His passions, his heart becomes our heart and what is important to him, becomes important to us
If my first thought when I saw my daughter on as she was born was, “I’m in love!” my second thought was this: “Touch her, and you’re dead!”
I once heard a story from some old friends of mine (now married) of the first time ‘the girl’ brought ‘the boy’ home to meet ‘the parents’. The boyfriend was met at the door by her dad. As he looked at him, my friend saw that he was holding bullet in his hand and was slowly tossing it up in the air and catching it again. This went on for an eternity before finally the father tossed it over to the boy and said these words: “If you mess with my daughter and the next one is coming a whole lot quicker!”
If I am sure of nothing else in my life right now, I know this…I will defend my kids to the death. I will hurt, crush, kill and destroy anything that comes against them and I won’t feel bad doing it. I think when God said, “Vengeance is mine…” he had just that in mind.
I know we can easily look around you and find ways to convince ourselves that some of these points aren’t true. Usually, that starts when we haven’t gotten the first two points down deep. If that’s the case, I’d like to encourage you to start a conversation with your Father in heaven, wipe the slate clean if you need to, and start from the beginning. Jesus said of Himself, “My Father and I are one.” Notice that He didn’t say, “I only represent my Father’s ‘good’ side.” How often do we view the Father as a vengeful judge just waiting to unleash fury all the while we have poor Jesus is standing in front of us pleading him His Father to stop? That’s simply not what Jesus said.
So find the points that affect you the most and ask Him what He thinks about them. Then, ask Him what he thinks about you. Trust me, if you’re listening to the Father (and not something else), it’ll line up.
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About the Author
Brad Crabtree is an executive pastor at DaySpring Church, Sydney, Australia. He is married to Amber and is father of 3 awesome kids. The best way to his heart is through an excellent cup of coffee or a solid trek through a jungle somewhere…preferably, both at the same time!
Ben Stein’s new documentary “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed” hits select cities nationwide tomorrow. You can watch the trailer below.
But come on now…
When will they stop trying to force feed us their brand of religion? How long do we have to put up with this? Don’t they know that we’re trying to live our own lives here? That we’re sick and tired of their invasion into our privacy? Telling us what to believe and and how to believe it? Trying to comprise our public schools and universities with their doctrines? With things that can not be proven? That require faith to believe in? Give me a break. I believe those are called theories–not facts as they would say.
How can they be so close minded?
How can they can they be so narrow?
This is downright offensive. It shouldn’t be allowed to even be entertained.
But then again, this is their religion, after all. I’ve got to cut them some slack. I’m not just attacking their scientific opinions on the cause and purpose of life–if it can even be considered science–I’m actually attacking their belief system. Their religion. Their faith on why things are the way they are. And that’s deep rooted stuff.
So no wonder this subject stirs such a debate. It’s no longer scientific; it’s a clash of belief systems. Last I knew, this sort of cataclysmic collision pitted nations and families against one another for centuries. And apparently, it still does.
“Christianity has fought, still fights, and will fight science to the desperate end over evolution, because evolution destroys utterly and finally the very reason Jesus’ earthly life was supposedly made necessary. Destroy Adam and Eve and the original sin, and in the rubble you will find the sorry remains of the son of god. Take away the meaning of his death. If Jesus was not the redeemer that died for our sins, and this is what evolution means, then Christianity is nothing.â€
G. Richard Bozarth , “The Meaning of Evolutionâ€, American Atheist, 20 Sept. 1979, p. 30
So true, Mr. Bozarth. But if this could be true, then the converse could also true. If evolution is wrong, than it proves God is real, Jesus’ sacrifice is the only means for salvation, and consequently, makes all of mankind accountable for their own sin.
No wonder mankind doesn’t want Intelligent Design to be real: It would prove that not only God is real, but as Mr. Bozarth implied, that we are in need of His mercy through Jesus Christ.
My comments at the top were not about Jesus Believers, they were about Evolutionary Believers. Because we’re all believers in something.
To some, Science is god; to me, the God of science is. It’s just so much more logical and requires a whole lot less, well, faith.
Thanks for reading.
CH
