If God Wanted... Part 1 of 3 ~Greg J

You may have heard some of these classic one-liners.

• “If God wanted us to see the sunrise, he would have scheduled it later in the day!” – Anon. !
• “If God wanted me to bend over, he would have put diamonds on the floor!” – Joan Rivers !
• “If God wanted me to be sober, he wouldn’t have created grapes!” – Dean Martin !
• “If God wanted us to vote, he would have given us candidates!” – Jay Leno !
• “If God didn’t want us to eat pigs, why did he make them out of bacon?” – bumper sticker !

Same schtick, but with theology:

• “If God wanted to send us a message, and ancient writings were the only way he could think of doing it, he could have done a better job.” – Carl Sagan !
• “If God wanted to forgive our sins, why not just forgive them...?… Who was God trying to impress?” – Richard Dawkins !
• “If God existed, he'd have made the world more just.” – Joseph Stalin !
• “If God wanted us to believe in him, he'd exist!” – Linda Smith !

Consider this:

Maybe God wants to send us a message; to forgive our sins; for us to believe in him.

But perhaps these things are not God's priorities.  Or they are means, not ends. 

Let’s take a closer look at the questions and respond to these questions.

• “If God wanted to send us a message, and ancient writings were the only way he could think of doing it, he could have done a better job.  And he hardly had to confine himself to writings. Why isn't there a monster crucifix orbiting the Earth? Why isn't the surface of the Moon covered with the Ten Commandments? Why should God be so clear in the Bible and so obscure in the world?” – Carl Sagan, Contact, p. 170.
  
  

A consideration: Maybe God simply is pausing for you and me as a species to sufficiently master ABCs like "love your neighbor as yourself" and fusion energy  before he moves on to a Green Eggs and Ham level of moral and physical comprehension.  This is not just a trope of science fiction such as 2001: A Space Odyssey. Job wanted an update from God, and all he got was a rebuff like this: "Can you send lightning bolts on their way? Do they come to you and say, ‘Here we are’? Who put wisdom inside the mind or understanding in the heart?" As a movie character later says, "It would be impossible to discuss the subject without a common frame-of-reference."  Frankly, we've got plenty of Bible.

Is the problem that ancient writings lack the authority and accessibility of  a monster crucifix orbiting the earth? Consider the likely result of a such a mass memo. Wait, better than speculate, how have people already responded to what they believed to be miraculous messages? For example:

• “And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, ‘Where are you?’” – Genesis 3 
  
• “When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, 'Up, make us gods who shall go before us....'”    –Exodus 32
• "The rich man said, ‘No, father Abraham! If someone goes to them from the dead, they would believe and change their hearts and lives.’ But Abraham said to him, ‘If they will not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not listen to someone who comes back from the dead.’" – Luke 16
• “Yes, God has shown himself to them. There are things about him that people cannot see—his eternal power and all the things that make him God. But since the beginning of the world those things have been easy to understand by what God has made.... For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking.”  – Romans 1

I suspect our comprehension and our obedience are important to God. However, I also suspect that God is extraordinarily patient, patient on the scale of millenia. But what if our comprehension and our obedience are not God's ultimate goal?

• “In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets many times and in many different ways. But now in these last days God has spoken to us through his Son.”  – Hebrews 1
• “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in and eat with you, and you will eat with me.”  – Revelation 3

Message, schmessage.  Does God want to give us a message? God wants to give us Himself. What more can God say?

To be continued... badda boom!

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Part 2 ⇒