Hallelujah, pass the cornbread

God has been so faithful, because of _____.


I hear this phrase ALL the time. I mean, I grew up homeschooled and currently go to a conservative Christian college in the middle of the Bible belt, I've heard the name "God" in conjunction with "is faithful" more than I care to enumerate.

And I mean, it's great that we acknowledge He's faithful, because He is and that needs to be spoken. It's awesome. But I have a confession to make. So those of you who think I am sweet and kind and gentle and loving and blah blah blah, you should probably stop reading because what I am going to say isn't really any of those things. Ok. You can stop now. Bye.

















Since everyone left over from that first group is probably everyone anyway, I feel like I can move on having given sufficient warning.

What I was saying was that whenever I read something like that, a whole "God-is-awesome-because-I-just-got-what-I-wanted", I get REALLY irritated. I probably shouldn't. I shouldn't be frustrated. But in my immaturity and hotheadedness, I am. Because I see that tendency to approach God in an entitled, self centered manner in me so much; actually in the entirety of God's people. It's this attitude.

God is good when things are good. God is absent and needs to come through when things are bad. 


And I guess it alludes back to how we pray, which I was talking about here. So maybe I'm just beating a dead horse.

I just wonder, if things didn't come out how you wanted. If something that is "bad" by your definition is the result of all of your praying that something "good" would happen. If God doesn't "come through" in the way you asked Him to. Are you still going to tell people He's been good in that situation? Are you still going to use words like "Faithful" and "Merciful" and "Loving" when referring to Him? Does your opinion of God ebb and flow with the situations and circumstances you're waiting on Him to work in?

We are a pretty fickle people, especially given to project our current feelings about the situation onto God. And we often forget that Him being good has nothing to do with what He does. His actions are not simply "good" or "bad" by our small definitions. They're just. Holy. Agape. Everlasting. Grace. Judgement. Jealous. Good. True. And a plethera of other things we like to leave out because we don't understand them. And it's my hope that someday I will stop trying to fit God into my own box with all of its limitations and confining parameters, and will step into the reality waiting for me: that the  freedom He offers looks so much different than what I have constructed.


One day, I'll understand what is meant by what Tirian, from the Horse and His Boy, says of Aslan-
"He isn't a tame lion"