Our God is in heaven; he does whatever pleases him. – Psalm 115:3

Today’s Scripture Reading (June 15, 2016): Psalm 115

Bob Marley once remarked that he didn’t “stand for the black man’s side.” And he didn’t “stand for the white man’s side.” He stood “for God’s side.” Too often in the history of the world, we have invited God to stand up for what we think is right. We have invited him to be the defender of the black man, and of the white man, and often with disastrous consequences. We like to tell God what it is that is right rather than asking him what he would have us do. But the truth is that God is the author of truth, not us. And God follows his truth no matter what we might think of it.

I often struggle with the response I get from people, usually over the idea of the existence of evil in the world, that they could never believe in a God who would allow that (whatever the event might be) to happen. The problem with the phrase is that we are trying to become like God. It is a return to the sin of the Garden of Eden. It is our desire to make me like God, or maybe more precisely, to remake God in the image of me. Even as Christian’s, we are guilty. We can’t imagine God working outside of our little circle of belief. Just before his death, I had a conversation with my grandfather around the idea of Jesus teaching on the wide and narrow gate. The comment comes from Jesus near the end of his Sermon on the Mount. “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it” (Matthew 7:13-14). The warning my Grandfather had for me was that we were to find the narrow gate, but the narrow gate was a lot wider than he thought it was as a young man. As he grew older he began to understand that we might be surprised at who enters in, just as we might be surprised at God’s definition of what is right.

The accusation that had been thrown at the psalmist was a direct one. Where exactly is your God? How could he allow this to happen? And the reply of the psalmist was just as direct. I do not control God. He is in heaven and he does what he will. I don’t get to inform God of what is right and what is wrong. In many ways, the idea of right and wrong is meaningless as I might describe them. The truth is that God defines right as his way and his actions. Wrong is simply the opposite of what God does. So whatever God does is right. I don’t have to understand that and he does not require my defense. He simply is. And there is nothing more that I need to know.

Personally, I wouldn’t want it any other way. A god small enough for me to understand is a god that is too small for the problems of the world in which I live. I get that not everything will go my way, but I continue to stand on “God’s side.” To paraphrase Bob Marley – “I don’t stand on the side of the church. I don’t stand on the side of the world. I stand on God’s side – and, for me, that is more than enough.”

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Psalm 116 & 117