Many of us distrust God or hold an offense against God because we are victims of misinformation. We believe that God sovereignly determines all things and, therefore, when bad things happen he is the cause or, at least, is at fault because he didn’t prevent the tragedy. We often hold God responsible for things he never promised and for things he has made clear he will not do. This all falls into the conundrum of free will and is worth considering as we attempt to understand the goodness of God.

In the very beginning, God determined to grant man free will – the ability to make choices that God would neither prevent nor force on man. God placed two trees in the Garden and gave Adam and Eve a clear choice concerning those trees. They could eat of every tree in the Garden, including the tree of life and live forever or they could eat of the one tree of the knowledge of good and evil and become subject to death and expulsion from the Garden.

When Satan entered the Garden and began to dialogue with Eve, God let her choose and let Adam choose their course of action even though the consequences were catastrophic for them, their descendants, and the universe. Their actions released pain and suffering on a fallen world. So why did God simply not rush in and sweep Satan from the Garden or freeze Eve’s mouth in place so that she could not continue her discussion with the serpent? Why did he not intervene to prevent the sin and the far ranging consequences?

I think there are, perhaps, two reasons. First of all, our actions are the true measure of love. I have counseled with any number of abused wives whose husbands continually declare their love for them. Physical and verbal abuse year in and year out suggests something else. How had God expressed his love for Adam and Eve? He had created them with his own hands, given them life, placed them in a phenomenal garden that met every need, and had granted them authority over his creation and the significance that came with that position. He met with them daily to build a relationship and impart his word and his ways to them. He treated them as a son and a daughter. And…he gave them the ability to think and choose rather than simply being puppets on the stage of creation. Being made in the image of God suggests that since God is sovereign, man must have some measure of sovereignty over his own life to reflect that image.

In the same vein, God is love and love is not satisfied unless love is willingly returned. Love that is forced or contrived can hardly be love. Love that is given must be a true choice and a true choice requires free will. Free will is risky but it is the price of love. Adam and Eve chose not to love God that day when they trusted the words of a stranger over the clear commands of the Father. Free will and the actions that flow out of our decisions are measures of our love for others, including God. Free will is the ultimate evidence of love.

Secondly, God was not interested in having eternal children. He wanted Adam and Eve to mature and become adults operating in love and wisdom. Free will is the context in which maturity occurs. Have you ever been around a child whose hovering parents make every decision for him or her in the name of protecting that child? You can easily project the disastrous “adulthood” that is coming for that boy or girl. We mature by making decisions and learning from the consequences. We learn and mature by sowing and reaping the consequences. There is also great risk in that because my free will choices can bring pain and destruction on others – even on innocents. Free will gives every person the potential to bless or harm others. If God controls every person’s heart and intervenes in every situation so that no tragedies occur, no divorces happen, no war breaks out – then free will is out the window.

Free will nailed Jesus to a cross, but the Father, Son and Spirit believed from the beginning that is was worth it. Revelation 13 speaks of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. That phrase assures us that in the mind of God, the cost of free will was clear even before man was created and the price for redemption needed by those who chose poorly was already agreed upon.

God does not prevent our pain but neither does he abandon us to it. He has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” When the hurt comes, God is there to begin to heal our broken hearts and set us free from the bondage we often choose (Isa.61: 1-4). God is there to direct, restore, renew and, when we allow it, to rescue.

Many things happen in this world that are not God’s will and that do not represent his heart. “He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” (2 Pet.3:9). God wants all men to be saved, but not all men will be saved. Disease and suffering is not God’s heart for people. We know that because Jesus came to show us the Father and he constantly healed people out of compassion for their condition. We are also told that Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil (1 Jn.3:8). Therefore, disease and disability are the work of Satan not God and the cost of free will.

When a little girl suffers at the hands of satanists, a marriage crumbles, a child is born with birth defects, or a teenager commits suicide, these are not events ordained or approved of by God. These are the expressions of free will and sin in this world, which God is in the process of eradicating through the cross, the preaching of the Gospel, and the ministries of his church for healing, reconciliation, and freedom from all kinds of bondage in this world. There is a place where God’s heart is perfectly reflected in every way. That place is heaven and we are taught to pray for that will be expressed on earth as it is in heaven. God’s will is for his goodness to be felt everywhere but it will first be expressed through our choices.

When we take offense at God, we misunderstand the source of our pain. Why do we never take offense at Satan, when he is the source of all that is bad? God is good and wants good things for his children. How often he must show restraint and reserve judgment so that more have an opportunity to repent and be saved? God has sovereignly chosen to let man have a measure of sovereignty over his own life. God has paid the ultimate price for that decision but believes it is worth it in the end. In the meantime, he directs, comforts, heals, and protects more than we know and has sent his son to heal broken hearts and set captives free. He can be trusted and, truly, only wants the best for you.

There is an intimate relationship between joy and hope. While optimism makes us live as if someday soon things will go better for us, hope frees us from the need to predict the future and allow us to live in the present, with the deep trust that God will never leave us alone but will fulfill the deepest desires of our heart. Joy in this perspective is the fruit of hope. When I trust deeply that today God is truly with me and holds me safe in a divine embrace, guiding everyone of my steps, I can let go of my anxious need to know how tomorrow will look, or what will happen next month or next year. I can be fully where I am and pay attention to the many signs of God’s love within me and around me. (Henri Nouwen, Here and Now, p.33)

I like what Nouwen has said in this paragraph but I also believe his last statement is much broader than joy. We need to look for the evidence of God’s love in the smallest and largest of things because our greatest need is to truly believe we are deeply loved by our Father and our Creator. The thing that keeps nibbling away at my faith and that keeps me from asking for outlandish things is that I’m not sure that he loves me enough to keep me safe and do those things for me.

The thing that keeps me from embracing my position in heaven and walking confidently in the gifts of the Spirit is my awareness of my failings and my doubt that God loves me all that much because of those failings. I then live with the sense that if God doesn’t love me all that much he won’t give me the gifts I hunger for nor be there for me when I try to exercise those gifts. I fear he will be an absent or indifferent father to me.

The other huge thing my doubt affects is my ability to love. My experience tells me that we can’t love others if we doubt that we ourselves are loved by someone significant to us. Knowing that God loves me is everything. Noticing all the ways he loves me confirms that love in my heart and when I have love I can give love.

We can easily become like the older son in the parable of the prodigal who is so caught up in the day to day business of life that he failed to notice how his father loved him and provided for him every day. Then, when he realized he hadn’t been given a big party, he decided that his father didn’t love him at all. So often we ignore the myriad of things God does for us and then decide in one moment that he has never loved us when one disappointment comes our way.

Think about the little things. Smell the roses and the coffee. The little prayers that were answered as well as the big ones. They are both from God. Thank him for every little thing and the big things will take care of themselves. When I come to truly believe that the God of Heaven loves me deeply and thinks about me continuously, I will walk across this planet with hope, joy and the confidence of knowing that I am his.

Philip Yancey continues to be one of my favorite authors for his insights into scripture and his ability to put flesh and bones on Biblical truths that sometime seem abstract or are simply overlooked.  In his book, The Jesus I Never Knew, Yancey gives a chapter to the resurrection and makes some interesting observations that in all honesty I had missed.

We who read the Gospels from the other side of Easter, who have the day printed on our calendars, forget how hard it was for the disciples to believe…Author Frederick Buechner is struck by the unglamorous quality of Jesus’ appearances after resurrection Sunday.  There were no angels in the sky singing choruses, no kings from afar bearing gifts.  Jesus showed up in the most ordinary circumstances:  a private dinner, two men walking along a road, a woman weeping in a garden, some fishermen working a lake. (P.214).

Yancey goes on to point out that as far as we know Jesus made no post-resurrection appearances to unbelievers but only to those who had already believed.  He then says, “The resurrection is the epicenter of belief. It is, says C.H. Dodd, ‘not a belief that grew up within the church; it is the belief around which the church itself grew up.’” (P.217).

It’s true.  Paul said that if there were no resurrection then we are fools to be pitied for living our lives for Jesus. So why did Jesus not march into the Sanhedrin or up Pilot’s steps Sunday afternoon?  Why did he not appear in the temple courts and show the thousands of unbelievers there the holes in his hands and the gash in his side?  Although angels appeared at the tomb, they only appeared to a few and then were gone with no angelic voices trumpeting the risen Lord.   Why leave the world guessing instead of offering irrefutable proof his resurrection and his deity?  Why does God so often seem to tantalize us with evidence of his existence but not irrefutable proof?  Why was Jesus so resistant to giving the Pharisees the irrefutable signs they so often asked for and why did he call them wicked for doing so?

Jesus probably summed it up when Thomas saw the irrefutable evidence of Christ’s scars and believed.  As Thomas came to faith Jesus said I’m glad you have finally believed but, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”  Evidence appeals to logic  which rests in the mind and believes that all its questions have been answered.  Faith, on the other hand, rests in the heart and can live with some unanswered questions.  God has always been more interested in our hearts than in our heads.

The truth is that nothing rests on absolute, irrefutable evidence. Even if we think science has proven something beyond a shadow of a doubt we cannot prove with absolute certainty that something else is not there that has not yet been considered. We can’t prove with absolute certainty that our system of logic does not contain some minute flaw that leads us astray.   We cannot even prove with absolute certainty that the scientists who have “proven” their theory are not merely figments of our imagination or part of some eternal dream like The Matrix.  Everything requires a measure of faith and a willingness to believe something for which we might not have all the answers. When we demand that God make total sense to us or that every mystery in the Bible be explained before we believe,  our problem is not a problem of evidence but of a heart that refuses to let God sit on the throne rather than self.

Faith, indeed, is the currency of heaven. Faith believes on the basis of sufficient evidence rather than overwhelming evidence.  Even in the face of overwhelming evidence, some hearts won’t believe.  The Pharisees saw miracle after miracle – even the raising of the dead – and would not believe.  Faith believes in the nature of God even when what we see doesn’t compute.  When we pray with all of our hearts and a loved one dies out of time, faith does not require answers before it continues to believe that God is good. When we pray with all of our hearts and a marriage dies anyway, faith does not demand God’s explanation to continue to believe that God is love.  When we have seen others healed and other marriages saved, then we are confronted by the mystery of why our marriage wasn’t saved or our loved one wasn’t healed.  The power of faith is not that it has all the answers but that it continues to believe in the goodness and faithfulness of God in the face of mystery and disappointment.

That is the heart that God values and that is the currency of heaven.  Faith does not measure God by what he has not done for us but by all that he has done for us.  When we wonder what God is like in the face of personal disappointment, we simply look at Jesus who told Phillip that if we have seen Jesus then we have seen the Father.  Jesus didn’t heal every sick person in Jerusalem but would we say that Jesus was not loving?  Jesus did not set every slave free but would we say he is not merciful? Jesus didn’t raise every dead person but would we say he was indifferent?  Then why would we say that about God?  There are mysteries that faith cannot answer but what it can answer is “what is the heart of God towards people?”  The cross surely answers that.

When we doubt, Jesus will probably not send kings with gifts or angelic choruses but will show himself to us in plain and ordinary ways.  It we will be open to him that will be enough.  Have faith today without having all the answers and be blessed.

For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. (Eph.1:4-6)

We are continuing to talk about who we are in Christ and more specifically who you are in Christ.  The Holy Spirit is very clear in this passage about God’s intentions for you.  You are not just a random life floating through the universe.  According to the apostle Paul, God in his foreknowledge saw a number of people who would respond to the gospel of Jesus Christ if given a chance.  And so, it was determined before the creation of the world that Jesus would die on behalf of those who would believe. If you are in Christ, then you are one of those.  If you are considering Christ, then I believe you are one of those he chose before he put his hand to the ground and formed Adam in the Garden.

In his foreknowledge, God saw your heart.  It was a heart that would respond in faith to his grace and so he created a destiny for you.  Typically, we see much less in ourselves than God sees in us but he sees the potential in you for faith and greatness in his kingdom.  Most of us don’t agree with God about our own capacity.  We can’t imagine doing anything that God or heaven would  applaud. Be careful that you don’t begin to evaluate God’s estimation of you on the basis of what the world considers greatness.  Instead, consider greatness as it is measured in heaven.

Greatness in the kingdom is first measured by the condition of the heart rather than by great deeds. In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul is clear that you could do amazing and epic things but without love they would count for nothing.  So love is greater than deeds.  Hebrews 11 is clear that faith is the real currency in the kingdom of heaven. Abraham was justified by faith, by believing God, before his “doing” was ever praised.  Faith, then, is greater than deeds. Through the prophet Hosea, God said, “For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings” (Hosea 6:6). So even mercy is greater than the things we do.

Before you begin to evaluate yourself on the basis of your performance and possessions…look first at your heart.  As you scan all the men and women counted as great in the kingdom of God on Hebrews 11, very few were kings and very few possessed wealth.  But even for those that did, their power and possessions were not mentioned. There faith was what caught heaven’s attention.  It was faith that made them famous in the court of the King.  The world measures greatness, even for Christians by name recognition, books published, church size and television audience. But with love, faith, and mercy in your heart your greatness in the kingdom may exceed those men and women with huge television audiences, massive book sales, and sold out stadiums.

“But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a fraction of a penny. Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on” (Mk.12:42-44).  Jesus said that his woman, who by worldly standards hardly counted, was counted greater in the kingdom of heaven than all those who gave great amounts out of their wealth.

God has destined you for greatness because he saw something in your heart through which he could do great things.  To say you were predestined simply means that he created a potential destiny for you before creation.  Of course, you can say no to any part of the destiny you choose, but you can also say yes. God loved you before you were ever conceived and arranged for your adoption before the first sunrise ever lit the eastern horizon.  On top of that, God did not feel compelled to adopt you because it was the “right thing” or the “righteous thing” or because you were pitiful.  He adopted you because it pleased him and because he wanted to.

In the days that Paul penned his letter to the Ephesians, a father could disown his own biological son if he determined to do so.  However, a father could never disown one he had adopted because the adoption was not by accident although a natural birth could be.  Adoption was by choice and the Father would always stand by that choice.  God is not undecided about you.  You are undecided about you.  He saw your potential for greatness before you were conceived. It’s up to you to step into the greatness he has destined. He will make you into whatever you choose by your choices. Whatever you say yes to or no to in the spiritual realm will limit God or release God to do all he has planned for you.

Here is the key – accept God’s evaluation of who you are and your potential for greatness. Focus on your relationship with the Father and a heart that pleases him.  The rest will take care of itself because it is the heart that will make you great or keep you small in the kingdom. Then ask God to make you everything he has seen in you.  Give him control and say yes to every challenge and opportunity because those will be steppingstones to your destiny.  Be blessed today knowing who you are and that God has been involved in your life longer that the earth has whirled through space.

Have you ever considered all the moments when God said to someone, “Don’t be afraid.”  Sometimes, God spoke those words and at other times his messenger spoke the words.  By “messenger” I mean angels, prophets, or the Son himself.  At the same time, we find dozens of passages that command us to fear God.

If I were to summarize all those passages I might say:  If you fear God you don’t have to be afraid of God and if you don’t have to be afraid of God you don’t have to be afraid of  anyone else.

Let me explain.  Solomon said that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge (See Prov. 1:7).  A proper view of God as the sovereign Lord over all creation, holy, righteous in all he does, all powerful, all present and all knowing is the first step to a relationship with him.  To hold him in awesome respect as the judge of all the earth holds everything else in place.  Our first response to God should be the same as Isaiah’s response when he saw the Lord high and lifted up and seated on his throne – “Woe is me!” (Isa.6:1ff).  As great a prophet as Isaiah was his sense of sin and weakness in the presence of God’s majesty, justice, and holiness was overwhelming. That view of God keeps us honest and keeps us from abusing God’s grace and love.

Let’s be honest. Somewhere in our fallen nature is the capacity to take advantage of those who love us unconditionally and lavishly.  In response to that capacity, Paul asked the rhetorical question, “Should we sin all the more that grace may abound?”  In other words, should we sin intentionally and often and simply seek our own gratification because God is gracious and forgiving? The answer is no of course but a view of God that simply acknowledges his graciousness, long-suffering, and forgiving side places us on a track to abuse the relationship.

God offers us an intimate, Father/son or Father/daughter relationship in which we can be secure and come boldly before his throne seeking help. He has offered us friendship, forgiveness, patience and grace.  However, he can offer us that side of the relationship only as long as we remember who he is.  I have seen fathers who have become friends with their children in the sense that they played, teased, and laughed with their children.  I have also seen those children begin to abuse that familiarity and speak with a lack of respect or act as if they no longer needed to obey that father.  They confused his kindness and his willingness to communicate on their level with equality.  In those cases, the father was quick to remind them that he was still the father and the one in charge.

If we never forget that our Heavenly Father is still God Almighty, Creator, and Judge then he can extend to us familiarity (Abba Father) and even friendship because we won’t become careless with the relationship or take advantage of his love and kindness. If we fear God then we don’t have to be afraid of him.  When you consider Abraham, Isaiah, Moses and others to whom he said, “Don’t be afraid,” it is clear that they held an awesome respect and reverence for God.  Therefore, he could call them friends, welcome them into his throne room, and extend forgiveness when needed because the relationship stood on the healthy foundation of fear.

When we fear God we don’t have to be afraid of him because we have love and friendship as a bond.  When the one who loves you and counts you as a friend is the most powerful being in the universe then you have not need to fear anyone else.  God has your back and if God is for you who can stand against you?   I know there is tension between familiarity, comfort, friendship and the fear of God.  That tension is not contradictory but keeps us in balance between two extremes so that our relationship with the Father can flourish.  Meditating on his greatness and holiness as well and his grace and kindness is a healthy thing.  You may want to do that today and be blessed.

For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints,       I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. (Ephesians 1:15-20)

This is a text that I often go to when ministering freedom and healing to broken and oppressed believers. Most of us continue to live with our brokenness because we don’t truly understand who God is, what he has provided for us, or who we are in Christ.  Through the years you have probably known someone that continued to live in a hurtful, abusive situation year after year. Perhaps they were in an abusive relationship or a job where they were underpaid, overworked and never appreciated.  They clearly hated their situation and it was clear that it was taking a toll on them emotionally, physically, and spiritually.  And yet, they would not take steps to free themselves from the relationship or to seek different employment.

I have visited with a number of individuals in those situations.  Some finally made the break after they became absolutely desperate.   I asked them why they had stayed in those hurtful situations so long when everyone they knew encouraged them to get out.  Inevitably the same reasons always surface.  One reason was fear of the unknown.  As bad as their situation was, they knew what they had and feared having nothing at all if they left the relationship or the job.  Most of us would believe that nothing was better than what they had, but fear that the future might hold something even worse kept them where they were.

Others viewed themselves in such a way that they truly believed they didn’t deserve anything better.  The messages from their past had convinced them that they were worthless, low achievers whom no one would ever love or value.  Their abusers or unappreciative employers reinforced those beliefs so they thought life would never offer more because they didn’t deserve anymore.  So … they stayed.

The third reason was that their mothers or fathers had modeled that life for them by continuing in abusive relationships or staying in dead end jobs with a sense of resignation that the world would offer them nothing more. These abused and oppressed people in some way believed that what they were experiencing was “the norm” because they had watched their parents endure it all the years they were growing up.  In some subconscious way they probably sought out what their parents had modeled because that was familiar.

Our spiritual lives can be the same.  Many believers continue to live with a sense of insignificance, a painfully negative view of themselves, oppressive thoughts, addictions, and general sadness because they believe there are no real alternatives for them or because they simply don’t deserve more in this world.  Some even believe that God has visited their misery on them so that continuing in their pain is a way of “paying for their sins” even though Jesus had already paid for every sin.  Many have simply taken on an identity of pain, rejection, and failure.  They can’t imagine being anything or anyone else and so they stay in that place for decades.

In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul affirms their faith and love and his excitement about their newly found life in Christ. He then lets them know that he has been constantly praying for them and asking God to give them the Spirit of wisdom and revelation. He says that he is praying for the Spirit to give these believers both of those gifts so that they might know God better.

We can come to know God through study, teaching, conversations, etc. to an extent.  But if our faith and understanding of God stay at an intellectual level then God remains a concept more than a person. We tend to know about God rather than knowing God.  Revelation deposits truth in our hearts – in our core being – and that is where profound change and healing occur.  Wisdom is knowing how God perceives people and situations and acting in accord with God’s view of things.  To know how God thinks is a huge step toward knowing God. To know how he feels about people, especially ourselves, is also a huge step toward knowing him.   Paul is really asking God to reveal both his mind and heart to the believers at Ephesus so that they might truly get to know him.  And as they say, “To know him is to love him.”  To know his love for us is also the most healing thing in the universe.

Paul goes on to say that he has asked the Father to enlighten the eyes of their hearts that they might also perceive what they have in Jesus.  In short, Paul declares that they have hope, riches, and power in Jesus.  They have hope because God has a future for them that is full of life and blessing if they will trust him enough to receive it.  They have the riches of heaven available to them if they will receive his promises by faith.  They also have the same power that raised Jesus from the dead and that created the universe working on their behalf. Most of us have read those truths and promises in scripture and would say we believe them.  But for many of us, the belief is an intellectual position rather than something we have “written on our hearts.”

The work of the Spirit is revelation and revelation writes truth on our heart.  When we get the truth in our hearts it changes things.  Believers who stay in their brokenness and oppression don’t know God, who they are in Christ, or the riches that are theirs if they will pursue them.  They hear these truths but haven’t received them in their hearts.  They need revelation.  They need an experience with God, a fresh and personal word from God, or a teaching to explode in their hearts.  They need the Holy Spirit to give them wisdom and understanding to know what God has just done in their lives and to receive it as a gift from him.

I believe that we need to pray Paul’s prayer constantly for ourselves and for those who are struggling in their faith. We desperately need divine wisdom, the revelation of God’s truth, and for the “eyes of our heart” to be opened so that we might fully understand everything that is ours in Jesus as well as the power our Father is willing to wield on our behalf. When we grasp those things we can let go of the present and step into the future. We can exchange the devil’s view of who we are for the Father’s view of who we are. We can lay fear about the unknown aside and trust that God already has it worked out in marvelous ways.

Today I pray that God will give you the Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation that you may know him better and that he will open the eyes of your heart so that you may know the hope, the riches, and the power that are yours in Jesus Christ.  I hope you’ll pray the same for me.  Be blessed.

Have you ever wondered where God is and how he feels when you are being abused, wronged, or wounded?  I was visiting with a friend of mine who is a gifted songwriter.  My friend has been deeply wounded on several occasions in this life but reminded me of a great psalm that pictures God’s response to those who would harm his children.

King David wrote: The cords of death entangled me; the torrents of destruction overwhelmed me. The cords of the grave coiled around me; the snares of death confronted me.  In my distress I called to the Lord; I cried to my God for help. From his temple he heard my voice; my cry came before him, into his ears. The earth trembled and quaked, and the foundations of the mountains shook; they trembled because he was angry. Smoke rose from his nostrils; consuming fire came from his mouth, burning coals blazed out of it. He parted the heavens and came down; dark clouds were under his feet. He mounted the cherubim and flew; he soared on the wings of the wind…The Lord thundered from heaven; the voice of the Most High resounded. He shot his arrows and scattered the enemies, great bolts of lightning and routed them… He reached down from on high and took hold of me; he drew me out of deep waters. (Ps.18:5-16).

Although David employs a great deal of imagery in this psalm, the picture is clear. God is a loving Father who hears the cry of his children and rises in anger toward those who would injure them.  David wrote this after God had delivered him from the hand of Saul who had been hunting David for years. In this psalm the Holy Spirit reveals the heart of God toward his hurting children.  He is described as a Father seething with anger, who rends the heavens to rescue one of his beloved children.  Before you say, “Well, he’s never done that for me when I have cried out!” remember that David went through a number of trials before he was finally and fully delivered from his enemy. But this psalm reveals a great deal that should comfort us.

First of all, God is not indifferent to our pain or our dilemmas.  He feels as any good father would feel watching someone hurt his child.  I remember a moment when my youngest daughter was in kindergarten. I was at her school for a Fall Festival when I saw her come of the door leading to the playground and a boy about twice her size pushed her so that she nearly fell.  It wasn’t an accident as he hurried by.  I saw him look at her and intentionally push her.  I felt my blood pressure rise along with a great deal of anger over what he had just done to my little girl. I confronted the boy and let him know very clearly that if that ever happened again there would be swift and severe consequences.  In that moment of anger, I still exercised restraint.  After all, he was just a boy…and there were witnesses. But I still remember my automatic and immediate response to seeing my daughter wronged by a bully.

David paints that picture of our heavenly Father.  He rises in anger breathing fire and coming in vengeance on those who would wrong his child.  And yet, even in this psalm, he showed great restraint.  With all of his power, he still only scattered the enemy and routed them.  Unrestrained, God could have annihilated every one of them in a moment. In his heart he wanted to do just that. Yet, he also loves those who hurt us and still desires for them to repent and be saved.   Remember those moments in the wilderness wanderings of Israel when God would tell Moses to step aside and let him destroy Israel and start over?  That was his feeling, but in his restraint he allowed Moses to intercede on behalf of a stubborn and faithless nation so that he could change his mind and give them another chance.  Think of the restraint of the Father as he watched cruel men abuse and crucify his only begotten Son.  God’s dilemma is that he is not only holy and all-powerful, but he is love. He loves us and our enemies as well. And so he restrains himself and by that restraint is restricted to comforting and healing us rather than annihilating our enemies the moment they wound us. Before you push back against that, remember that there have probably been moments in our lives when he restrained his anger and frustration against us as well.

However, there will come a day when those who refuse to repent will feel the wrath of a loving Father because of what they have done to his children. God does store up wrath. In that Day, men will cry out, tremble, and want to hide under the mountains because of the wrath that will be coming their way.  God is not indifferent and he will display his love for his children and his justice toward those who have abused, rejected, wounded, and even killed those in Christ who have not come to faith and repented.

Remember the parable of the sheep and the goats that Jesus told in Matthew 25.  It is a parable of judgment.  He says that when he comes with his angels, all men will stand before him and will be separated based on what they have done for the poor, the lonely, the imprisoned, and the oppressed.  Those who ministered to the victims of this world will be rewarded.  Jesus says, “Whatever you did for the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.”  To those who did not care about the victims of this world, Jesus released them to eternal punishment and said, ”Whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.”  How much more will that be true for those who injured his children without repentance?

Jesus told us that in this world we will have trouble.  He even told us to expect persecution. He also said, “ I will never leave you nor forsake you” and “I will be with you even unto the end of the age.”  Even in our suffering God is there. He is filled with pain and anger because of what is being done to us. His heart is to save, to comfort and to heal and also to punish the wicked who would hurt you.  He will do so in time. In the meantime, a Father’s restraint blesses us all.  Be blessed today knowing that whatever you have suffered, your Father is stirred deeply and will rise from his throne on your behalf.