God on the Warpath, or The Grace of God in the Virus of Death

God is in the business of tearing down our idols. We, because we are yet sinners, desperately seek to prove Jesus wrong, to successfully serve two masters. But our Master won’t have it. He will not share His glory with another, nor our allegiance with another. But we still try.

Three and a half years ago God’s idol destruction machinery took the form of my arrest. I had looked to a bottle to give me what I wanted. God showed me what a miserable failure of a god alcohol is. But He wasn’t finished. The security and peace that I found in my financial standing went up in smoke at the same time. The delight I took in my public reputation, though it had been bruised a time or two before, this time was down for the count. Self-sufficiency was yet another casualty.

Too many of us find it too easy in these difficult times to wring our hands and wonder aloud why God doesn’t do something. What we miss is that He is doing something. He is doing what He always does- washing us and glorifying Himself. He is tearing down our idols. When we weep and moan to see our second master bruised and bloodied, in need of a ventilator and on the brink of death, fools that we are we ask the true Master to rescue him. Meanwhile He is busy killing him.

What if God, wanting to help us learn to trust Him and not our health or our earning power or our government or our safety, or our barns filled to the brim, burned them all to the ground, smashed them to tiny pieces, gave them a deadly pestilence? What should we do? Not mourn the death of our idols, but rejoice in the life of the living God. Not weep for the rust on our treasure, but sing the glory of the Pearl of Great Price. Not ask Him to raise our idols from the dead, but believe His sure and certain promise that He will raise us from the dead on that great day.

What if God sent us a calamity so severe that all our strategies to defeat it, redirect it, mute it, overcome it were doomed to failure, no matter what? What if rather than calling us to change our circumstances, our Father who loves us is calling us to change our perspectives? What if this is actually a good thing? A gift? An affirmation and a proof that He loves us and wants to set us free?

Every bit of shame, every drop of hardship, every ounce of loss that pulled me over that dark night was a tender and loving, hand-picked gift from my heavenly Father who loves me today, and loved me that night, as much as He loves His Son. For all those in Christ, this is true. He is not just setting us free from the penalty of sin, He is cutting loose the bonds of the snares of sin, even though every cut pierces our dark hearts. Our calling is to praise and to thank Him. Not despite the hardships, but for them. He loves us too much to leave us loving the lifeless, unfaithful bastards we seek out and pursue. He tears them down, for our good and for His glory.