Every good gift that comes from God can destroy us.
Yep. What do you think about that? It’s not God’s fault, of course. We find ways to misuse every good thing and pervert it to our own wicked ends. It happens over and over, God gives us something good and pure, and then we take it and use it to hurt ourselves, and others. We’re like that, we kinda suck.
Let’s look at a few random examples:
DANCING
Dancing is a perfectly natural thing to do. If we are happy, we dance. If we hear music that moves us, we dance. If we have to go to the bathroom, we dance. The Bible endorses dancing, it says that God was pleased with King David dancing before the LORD in worship. So what’s the deal with “Footloose?” Why is the Reverend John Lithgow so uptight? Because we make it about something else, we make it about sex. Sleazy music, half dressed people, some gyrating hips and we have turned dancing into something nasty. And the usual reaction by good church people is to outlaw dancing. As if the sin existed in the dance. We think that we are safer, less likely to sin, if we keep ourselves as distant from the possibility of sin as possible. We basically say to God, “Thanks, but no thanks. We don’t need dancing.” And when dancing is outlawed, only the outlaws will dance.
GOD GAVE WINE
How about the obvious example of wine (and beer, and scotch, etc.) God gave these gifts to us to make us happy. You know, if we are having a day that makes us feel “unhappy,” then God gave us a little something that we can drink and relax. So that we can lighten up a little. Our problems don’t go away, but they don’t seem to matter quite as much. Ah, but some people are not satisfied with “a little something” and they drink too much. And they drink too often. And they don’t get happy, instead they get violent and mean, and keep going until they are sick and pathetic. The usual reaction is to blame the booze. We think the safer way is to abstain from drinking completely.
We think that if we build a wall around the things that could potentially cause us to sin, that we are doing a good thing. We build a wall so that we are not even tempted to sin. We can’t even see the sin. We add rules where there are not rules. But, in doing this, we despise the gifts God has given us. Do you see this?
A NEW CAR!
Think about it, let’s say I buy my daughter a new car (and now we know for sure that this is a fairy tale.) I hand her the keys and say, “Two rules, you have to wear your seat-belt and you can’t have more than one passenger in the car with you.” She thinks about it for a minute then says,
“No thanks, Dad, I don’t want to break your rules, so I just won’t accept the car at all.”
Would I be pleased? Is she really showing how much she loves me by refusing my gift?
YOU GOTTA SEE IT
I believe that God wants us to actually live in the garden where can see the forbidden tree. We are actually supposed to sit under it’s shade and use it’s rough bark to scratch our back. We are just not to eat the fruit. We are to get all the way up next to it, hold it in our hand, take it’s blessing, and not sin. We are to learn what it means to face temptation, resist the serpent, and watch him flee.
We should take the keys, thank our Dad with a heart full of joy, get in the car and drive around wearing our seat-belt, playing music, and drinking Starbucks with a good friend. That’s the good life.
Everything that God gives us has the potential to destroy us. He gives us money and we love the money more than we love Him. He gives us children and we put them on a golden altar and worship them instead of Him. He gives us cake and butter and we eat until we can’t fit into the pants that we bought with the money that we love more than Him.
God wants His people to have things, but He doesn’t want things to have His people.
May we accept God’s generous outpouring of blessings, and may we enjoy the blessings with a thankful heart. May we learn to enjoy the things that He gives us in the context of worshiping Him and Him alone. AMEN
I know what your problem is.
Some days are better than others.
