4S: God’s timing

God's timing

This week’s sermon is all about god’s timing and how it is very different from what we might expect. It is true that god might seem a bit capricious with regard to his timing. I wonder why anyone should expect anything different from that source. Here are a few observations I have on the matter?

Just another failed theodicy

This kind of appeal for god’s unpredictable timing is just another way to explain why bad things happen to good people, why evil is so prevalent, and why god seems hidden from the people who most need Him. In other words, it is just another failed theodicy. It is a way of making god unfalsifiable by saying that you can’t expect to find Him when you most need Him because He has His own timing that you can’t possibly understand.

It is not that an all-powerful and all loving god doesn’t exist in your hour of need. It is just that your hour of need is not the same as His hour of help. So if you are thinking that god owes you a visit just because you are in a bit of human hot water, you are the one with the problem and not god.

It is your job to wait patiently for the Lord. You shouldn’t expect that you can snap your fingers and get a timely rescue. Don’t you know that god allowed His own people to cry out to Him in slavery for over 400 years before He bothered to intervene? Even after He began His intervention, He allowed the suffering of His people to increase before He finally freed them. You haven’t even been crying out for 40 years. God is not slack concerning His promises. You simply don’t have enough faith and patience to wait on the Lord, who, after all those years of suffering, is indistinguishable from nonexistent.

It is never a failure

The thing about being faithful to the lord is that you can never call your efforts a failure or ever decide that god really doesn’t exist. It is all in how this type of Christian defines faithful. You should never do the math and decide that it is no longer worth it. You should never give up doing the same thing over and over regardless of how often it fails. The moment you do that is the moment you declare that you have given up on god. That means you were never truly a believer and you are now disqualified for that amazing fulfillment that god had in store for you had you just remained faithful one more day. Oh well… that’s on you.

What does it mean to wait on the lord? How long is a person intended to wait before deciding that help is not on the way? For this type of Christian, if you die waiting, that is still a part of god’s timing. What he has in store for you is unfathomable and so much more than the small relief you were asking for when you were alive.

In most situations, you would be a fool to sit around waiting for help that is not coming rather than doing everything you can do in your own power to save yourself. There are al kinds of schemes we come up with that won’t work. That is not to say it is wrong to try them. But is definitely wrong not to bail out when it is clear the scheme is not viable. That is true for everything except when the scheme involves a god. In that case, you can never bail out because you can never declaim that god failed. In that relationship, you are the only one that can fail.

Never taking no for an answer

Have you ever encountered the salesperson who simply refused to take no for an answer? Believing in god’s timing is a way of talking yourself into never taking no for an answer. The preacher said right up front that god could say no. Then immediately talked himself out of it with the illustration of David and the temple.

He detailed how David wanted to build god a temple and god denying the request. But then said that what god was really saying is that god was only saying that David couldn’t be the one who did it. The preacher never acknowledged that this was god saying no. He is the kind of preacher who can never take no as an answer. He has to recontextualize it so that he still has a chance.

God isn’t saying no; he’s saying not right now. He is not saying no; he’s saying not this way. He’s not saying no; he’s saying not this current version of you. We can contextualize all day until no has no meaning. You might want to play a musical instrument and 10 different instructors have told you that you are not cut out for it. But that doesn’t stop you. So you put in your 10,000 hours and you still suck. At some point, you need to consider that maybe this isn’t for you.

We need to learn how to assess our situation realistically. That will serve us in good stead in most situations. But when a god is involved, that goes out the window. Where a secularist takes the loss and moves on, the Christian can’t acknowledge the no. It is not god saying no. It is god molding you into the kind of person who can eventually receive a yes. This kind of contextualizing is not a healthy pursuit.

Conclusion: Indistinguishable from no god at all

I will repeat a point I made in the show. If you have to wait years for god’s response and you have to build character along the way, you have to build strength along the way, you have to do all the work that you would normally have to do were you doing it on your own, then in what way is god actually helping you that is clearly distinguishable from you just doing it yourself?

In the story of water to wine as told by the preacher, it would have cost the servants less time and effort by just going into town and buying more wine. What good was Jesus’ miracle when the servants had to do more work to get it than they would have had to do without it?

If Jesus is going to carry my burden for me, my back shouldn’t be bent and broken from the effort. If his yoke is easy and his burden is light, why are we all used up, swayback mules? If he carried me through the storm, why are my arches fallen and my feet bloody to the bone? If getting god’s help means I have to do all the work and give him the credit, I see no reason why I would ever want his help.

It becomes just another matter of faith that god did anything for you at all. The Christian response would be to question how we know that god didn’t help. Maybe we would have been dead had god not stepped in and intervened. But that is begging the question because it is assuming that god helped: the very fact we are trying to determine.

At the end of the day, god’s help is as hidden as he is. And that should be enough for you to see through the ruse and escape the madness. I did and I’m out. And I fervently wish the same for you.

See you in the comments…

David Johnson