The God of broken-hearted robots
Monday, December 15th, 2008 at 6:28 am
Posted by Drew
“Love … keeps no record of wrongs.” [1 Corinthians 13:4-5]
There’s this idea I think I might have about God.
Somewhere in my past, I wronged someone in a relationship and was not quite completely faithful to her. Years later, the supposed love of my life, whom I was engaged to marry, cheated on me — ending our three and a half year relationship.
Obviously, this was a painful event in my past — something that could have earned me one of these awesomely emo toys.
Now then, there are two ways I have usually seen this painful event.
One: This was God breaking Himself in to a messed up, imperfect relationship that was ultimately leading me away from Him. He used this hurtful, painful moment in my life to lead me back to Him.
So, where was God when this awful instance was happening? He was right there, cleaning up the mess and making something truly beautiful out of it: a relationship with Him.
Two: This was God punishing me for what I’ve done in the past to someone else. It’s not as if my hands were clean in this matter, and so I needed to face the consequences of my action. Those consequences ended up being that the same thing happened to me, only in a magnified way — my fiance was unfaithful to me while I was only unfaithful to a girlfriend of 2 weeks.
So, where was God when this awful instance was happening? He was right there, causing it to happen so that I would be punished.
This isn’t God at all, is it? God holds no records of my wrong. He certainly wouldn’t be taking some sin I’ve done in the past and turn it around and throw it in my face just to punish me. Even at that time, I was a forgiven man. I had long ago taken my sin of unfaithfulness before God. It’s not like He had refused to accept my plead with Him to wipe my slate clean.
But still, I had these two ideas of why this happened. And so, I did come close to God because of it — but maybe I came close to Him because I feared Him and not because I loved Him. I mean, sure, there is a fear of God that should grip me, but I’m not talking about that. Maybe I came close to God because I was afraid that being anywhere else would cause God to punish me and make me go through that hurt all over again. And being close to God in that instance is like being close to an abusive father because if you’re out of his sight, he’ll think you’ve done something wrong and attack you for it.
But my Father isn’t like that at all, is He?
No, my God is greater than that. My God is a Father who loves me and cares for me and doesn’t want to see me hurt like that. I mean, He will take these instances and redeem them in some holy way, but it’s not like He’s making them happen to take something out on me.
So, where was God really when this awful instance was happening? He was right there, seeing how it hurt me and seeing how much I needed His love and comfort and giving it to me. Whether I knew it or not, I came close to God at that moment because He was the only one who could fill that place in my heart that had been abused. I came close to God because He was a loving God and not a spiteful one.
I think realizing this now, it’s a shame that there’s been a conflicting view of God in my head. Only one of these gods is the real God.
God is not revenge. God is love.
“God is jealous, and the LORD revengeth; the LORD revengeth, and is furious; the LORD will take vengeance on his adversaries, and he reserveth wrath for his enemies.” (Nahum 1:2) But He is not jealous of what people have or what they are able to do. He is jealous because of the love He has for his own people. We might say He is jealous over His people, not of His people – the way a loving and faithful husband would be jealous over anything that would tend to steal his wife’s affection away from him.
God loves His people very much. And although we would rather hear about the love of God, we must not ignore the fact that God reserves wrath for the enemies of His people. Did you know that, even though God is love (I John 4:8), He also hates (Psalm 11:5)?
Most people, when asked to quickly name the opposite of “love,” will blurt out, “hate.” But this is incorrect. The opposite of love is not hate. The opposite of love is indifference. And our loving and just and jealous God is anything but indifferent.