Monday, October 18, 2010

My God is Scary

How often have people said the sentence, "If God is so good, then how come He kills all those people in the Old Testament?" I bet this thought has been used hundreds of times to explain why someone does not believe in or follow Christ. Or they may say, "Why does God let bad things happen to good people?" My first question to that is what is your definition of good, but that is a whole other post. The thing is, people want God to be nice, loving and sweet. I think we want to picture Him like a sweet grandmother who is always there with hugs, kisses, candy and a comforting story to read to us. We want Him to rock us to sleep at night and fix our boo boos when we fall down and hurt ourselves. We want Him to love us no matter what and fix all our problems, whether we caused them or not. We love the God is Love part. We bask in the God is gracious, kind, and slow to anger part. We relish the God will work everything out for our good part. And we want all of this without the God is Justice, Creator, Avenger of the Faith, and Holy part. We like God to be sweet and soft, not big and mean.

But can God truly be sweet and soft without being big and mean? We live in a world that is ruled by the devil. The bible says the earth is Satan's domain. Is a God who will not or cannot defend us from evil truly a God of love? If you were a child that grew up in a rough neighborhood with gangs and criminals all around you, what was more comforting for you: your grandmother's hugs and stories or your father's ability to handle his gun and defend your home?

Here is the bottom line: We live in a big ugly world full of people and spirits that are out to get you. If I am going to survive life in this rough of a neighborhood, I want to know that my Daddy can defend me before I will feel safe. I want a God who can beat Goliath, who can destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, who can wipe out entire armies and nations for that matter. I want the God who can part the Red Sea and feed me for 40 years. I want the God who expects me to stay within His fortress and doesn't ask me to fend for myself.

Yes, I also want God to be loving, patient and long suffering with me. I want God to meet me at my shortcomings and shore up my doubts and unbelief, but I do not want a God that is weak. I already know all too well how weak I am. I want my God to be big, scary and without weakness. I want Him to be Love so completely that He is willing to protect me and all of His children at any cost.