Great Question III

Why did God create man if he knew that man was just going to mess things up?

I got this question from one of my Good News Club kids last year. It's a tough one to answer and I don't think that there is just one reason either.

Here is what I believe:
God created man for at least three reasons (originally)

1. To show a reflection of Himself in His creation (notice I said reflection not copy. I believe there is a difference) (Gen. 1:26a)
2. To create a being that was able to have a relationship with Him that was unlike that of the other creatures of creation.
3. Originally to have dominion over the other creatures in creation and to subdue the earth (Gen. 1:26,27). Interestingly, though, it is not repeated to Noah in Genesis 9 (though, the "Be fruitful and multiply" command is).

     I believe that God could have stopped what happened in the garden but didn't. In essence He allowed man to disobey His command to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil (Gen. 2:17, 3:1-7)
      I believe that God allowed things to happen this way so that we might know more fully how deep His love is by showing just how far He was willing to go.
     Think about it. If we had never sinned, then Christ would not have had to die. If Christ didn't die we would know that God loved us but we wouldn't be able to even try to comprehend how deep that love is for us. Now at least we can begin to grasp the desperate, painful, deep, powerful, passionate nature of His love!

Great Question

     Why doesn't God show Himself to us? Was a question I got from one of my Good News Club kids. Kids ask such simple but such profound questions sometimes. This particular kid has a mom who is Buddhist and decided to accept Jesus last year at Good News Club.
     So then why doesn't God show Himself to us? Well, if he did we would all die immediately from the presence of pure holiness, righteousness, justice, and Godness. So incineration, kaput, kapooie! We as sinners would not survive that kind of revelation of God to His creation.
      Kid: What about Jesus?
      Me: Well, Christ kept at bay that part of himself that was able to destroy all of human kind. He kept the fullness of his glory and power in check so that we would not be destroyed by His presence. Why? Because he can.
     If He hadn't done that there would have been no drinking of God's wrath and no promised Savior. So in a sense he did this because he had to in order to pay the price for our salvation. (This is close but probably not word for word to how I answered the question at Good News Club. It was pretty hard core like that though.)
     Since answering the question above live however I have had a chance to really look at the question and think about it as Old Testament stories come up in my Church and in my devotional life. Sometimes the Bible can get really big and complicated.
     God showed Himself to many in the Old Testament including but not limited to these specific times:
 Abram -Gen. 12:7 'Then the LORD appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the LORD, who had appeared to him.'
 Isaac -Gen. 26:2 'And the LORD appeared to him and said, “Do not go down to Egypt; dwell in the land of which I shall tell you.'
 Jacob -Gen. 28:13 in his dream and again in Gen. 35:9,10 'God appeared to Jacob again, when he came from Paddan-aram, and blessed him. 10 And God said to him, “Your name is Jacob; no longer shall your name be called Jacob, but Israel shall be your name.” So he called his name Israel.'
 Moses -Ex. 3:2 And the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed.
 Gideon -Judg. 6:12 And the angel of the LORD appeared to him and said to him, “The LORD is with you, O mighty man of valor."
 Samson's parents -Judges 13
 Samuel -1Sam. 3:21 And the LORD appeared again at Shiloh, for the LORD revealed himself to Samuel at Shiloh by the word of the LORD.
 Solomon -1Kings 3:5 At Gibeon the LORD appeared to Solomon in a dream by night, and God said, “Ask what I shall give you.”, 1Kings 9:2 the LORD appeared to Solomon a second time, as he had appeared to him at Gibeon.
 And more times throughout the Old Testament.
God was not just interested in letting "people do their thing" and not getting involved. He made us to be in relationship with him.
     So why doesn't he appear to us today? One reason probably has to do with us having the revealed word of God in the form of the Bible today. He does not need to show Himself because He already has.
     He still is a very personal God and wants us to have a relationship with Him like Abraham or Moses did but He does not need to physically be there in order to do that. He wants us to pursue Him and be willing to give up ourselves for Him. He wants us to come as we are, whether that means you are broken and needing to run to Him right now or whether you are having a good day and just need to take a moment to remember who it was who made the day.
     It's hard for me to wrap my mind around the fact that the God who created the cosmos and thought of every little detail down to the smallest sub-particulate piece of matter that's out there would even be interested in me. But He is. The least I could do is be interested in getting to know Him.
     Don't know if that's much of an answer. It's something. If I can come up with something better I'll be sure to post it but for now that's my answer. It's different from my original answer, not that the original one was completely wrong but I didn't take into account that God had come down and talked with different people before Christ came and lived a life among us.

Saul, a Good King

     I've just finished reading 1Samuel recently and it struck me how the people respected Saul in his death; so much so that they were willing to risk their lives in order to get his body and deal with it properly. I ended up going through and looking at his life as a whole and really seeing how he wasn't that bad of a king.
     The story of King Saul is such an interesting story. Here is a man who at first was scared and hiding among the baggage during the "presenting" ceremony where Samuel would proclaim him king of all of Israel. (If I was in his shoes I would probably be scared too.) He was a good king. He genuinely wanted to protect the people of Israel from their enemies he just didn't always do it exactly the way that God wanted him to. Here is a man who might have been considered a good man he just had this thing against one guy who happened to have God's favor.
     We see the same thing in the relationship between Cain and Able where Cain is jealous of his brother because God has given Able favor and not him. So often I read the Bible and just read over it quickly and don't really pay attention to the stories. When you pay attention you see so much more and the people become real people, not just some person who lived a long time ago and did things that happened to get into the Bible. You can come to know who this person was and not just what they did. That's something that a normal history book just doesn't seem to be able to do (at least not as effectively).
     Saul is a man who started out as a really good king. To the people of Israel he seems to truly want to be a good king for them. He looked pretty good before men but before God his heart was not right. We see in 1 Samuel 13 that he was afraid that he would lose too many troops and so instead of waiting and trusting that God's timing was the best timing he went ahead and offered a sacrifice that he wasn't supposed to offer.
     In the circumstance it makes sense from man's perspective because if you lose too many men then you are guaranteeing your defeat but from Gods perspective it doesn't matter how many troops you have because His army is so much greater and so much more powerful than what we even know (2 Kings 6:8-19) (Genesis 19:1-25).
     Being a king though you would feel responsible if the people were attacked and you had sat by and done nothing. Saul may have been feeling the weight of his position and instead of seeking God he decided to do things his own way. He thought that if he offered the sacrifice and led people in worship his way that somehow that was ok. And instead of repenting of what he had done and recognizing that he hadn't put his trust in God for the victory instead he makes an excuse for what he did to make it sound like what he did was ok. How often are we guilty of the same thing? Maybe we don't have a whole kingdom to protect but how often do we excuse the "minor sins" that we do just because we want to feel better about what we do? In Saul's case it got his kingdom taken away. From man's perspective what Saul did probably wouldn't have been considered such a big deal but from God's perspective it was a really big deal.
     Throughout Saul's life he is fighting the enemies of Israel and trying to protect the people. He seems to genuinely want to help Israel, he only has one wife, he has a great son in Jonathan (we don't know very much about his other two sons except for the fact that they die with him, 1 Samuel 31:2,8, and that they are mentioned in 14:49). Saul seems to be one of the better kings of Israel from what we know about him he just had this jealously against David because he first saw God's favor on him and then figured that he was going to be king after Saul instead of his own son.
     The funny thing is if he hadn't messed around and gotten so jealous of David he may have been able to have one of his grandsons on the throne. He may have been able to help David to make better choices when it came to women and been able to encourage him to only have one wife. As it was he couldn't see past his own nose and was allowing his power and jealously to corrupt his relationship with his son-in-law making it impossible for him to speak into David's life. I don't know that this would have happened for sure but it would have been more likely had he not allowed himself to be overcome by himself.
     Now I know that some of what he went through had to do with this evil spirit who would torment him and the reason he even became Saul's son-in-law was due in part to his jealousy and wanting him to die at the hands of the Philistines but still if he hadn't been so jealous it would have only been a matter of time before Michael and David came to him telling him of their love for each other. Things would have probably worked out better but we as humans tend to let things get in the way and even though God's way is the best we tend to do things our own way because we are so shortsighted.
    Seeing past ourselves is so hard to do in the moment. It is so easy for us to be like Saul and so hard to be David where we look good and are good to most people there is just that one person who we don't like. Or maybe we are scared that our whole vision of how things are supposed to happen is falling apart and we end up doing things our way instead of seeking God and desiring to do things his way even if its hard.
     Anyway I just saw these things and thought I would pass these thoughts along. (The whole thing between David and not having other wives is all purely speculation. I don't actually know if this is true it's just the place that my mind wandered to.)

The Traffic of Life

     Our lives could be compared to driving down the freeway. Sometimes we fly down the freeway and find ourselves at our final destination in a very minimal amount of time. Other times we find ourselves sitting in traffic. Our lives are the same way. The days can fly past us or we can find ourselves waiting for something to move forward in our lives. Are we going to embrace the situation before us? Ultimately God has ordained the conditions that are placed on our stretch of road. How are we responding?

     Sometimes I go through the times of "traffic" in my life I get impatient. When I get impatient I get frustrated and start to at least mentally complain about how slowly things seem to be happening. Is this response embracing the situation that God has placed before me? Most certainly not. Has God sovereignly ordained the situation that I am in?     

     Sometimes life happens so fast that I feel like I barely have time to think about what is happening. During these times I'm speeding down the fast lane. I have two choices, I can embrace the road set before me or I can freak out because I'm worried about what might lie ahead. Does God have the power to slow my life down if He needs to? Am I the one in control or is God?

     Just because things aren't happening on my timetable doesn't mean that God isn't working. The story of Joseph is a great example of this. Here is a guy who works and does good work for his employer. He is put in charge of everything except what Potiphar eats. For a slave he had it pretty well. Living the slaves version of the "fast lane." 

    Then enter Potiphar's wife. She notices how handsome Joseph is and desires to have a sexual relationship with him. Does everything she can and finally resorts to try to force him. He gets away. She gets him thrown in prison. 

    Was this fair? From a human perspective it doesn't seem to be. Do we see Joseph complain? The Bible does not tell us that he did.

     We see a man who is blessed by God even in prison. Joseph seems to embrace the situation before him and continues to serve the people that God has placed over him. Even while we are in the midst of blessing do we always see it or do we focus on how slowly the traffic seems to be moving around us? 

     The real challenge came for Joseph when the Pharaoh's chief cupbearer and his chief baker have similar dreams while they are in prison. He interprets their dreams. The dreams tell of what will happen in the future. In three days the cupbearer will be reinstated as Pharaoh's chief cupbearer (a very important and influential position) and the baker will be hung. He asks the cupbearer to remember him. It takes the cupbearer 2 years before he finally remembers Joseph and tells Pharaoh. Do you think it was easy for Joseph to wait in the "traffic" of his situation?

      Sometimes we wait for what seems like an incredibly long time, for what? There is a need for every believer to keep God as their focus. Too often I find myself or another thing becoming the focus of my attention. Too often I find myself complaining because I'm in "traffic" and it just seems to stretch on and on. If I have God as my focus I find that I stop worrying about the traffic of my situation and I'm much more able to embrace the situation that is before me.

     The chief cupbearer remembers Joseph because Pharaoh has two dreams that are very similar. These dreams disturb him. He asks for someone to interpret them for him and the cupbearer tells Pharaoh about Joseph. 

     Joseph is then brought before Pharaoh to interpret his dreams. He says that both dreams mean the same thing. They show that there will be seven years of plenty and warn of seven years of famine so severe that the seven years of plenty will be "...forgotten in the land of Egypt..." (Gen. 41:30b ESV). Because he was able (through God) to interpret the dreams, Pharaoh elevated him to second in command over all of Egypt. 

    God needed Joseph to stay in Egypt so that His people might be saved. We learn later that Joseph saves his family from starvation, thereby saving the entire nation of Israel from being wiped out. God had a reason for keeping Joseph in his situation. It wasn't just because He thought it would be fun to keep Joseph from going home to his family or whatever else Joseph may have wanted to do. It was for the salvation of His people. 

     It isn't hard to see how Joseph is a picture of Christ.

 Christ came as a servant. Joseph served Potiphar. Christ was falsely accused, Joseph was falsely accused. Joseph was in prison with two prisoners and told one that he was going to live and be in the presence of the king. Christ was put on a cross between two thieves and granted one eternal life where he could be in the presence of the King of kings. Joseph was in prison for two years after telling the cupbearer to remember him to Pharaoh; at the beginning of the third year he was brought out of prison and into the court of Pharaoh. Christ was in the tomb for two days, rose at the beginning of the third day, and was ready to meet the Father, the King of the world. Joseph was able to save God's chosen people from physical disaster. Christ saved the chosen people from spiritual disaster.

     We can see all of this looking back on the "road" of Joseph's life. If he hadn't embraced the situation would the picture have been as clear? What about us? Are we embracing the "road" in front of us no matter what the "traffic" looks like? Are our lives a picture of Christ to those around us?