I am fully aware that God needs no defending especially by me, but I went with this title anyway! Here are my thoughts on a subject that comes up a lot within the church. Disappointment and anger towards God.

Before I go on though, let’s just start with this….

Usually, the condemned man, after being whipped, or “scourged,” dragged the crossbeam of his cross to the place of punishment, where the upright shaft was already fixed in the ground. Stripped of his clothing either then or earlier at his scourging, he was bound fast with outstretched arms to the crossbeam or nailed firmly to it through the wrists. The crossbeam was then raised high against the upright shaft and made fast to it about 9 to 12 feet (approximately 3 metres) from the ground. Next, the feet were tightly bound or nailed to the upright shaft. A ledge inserted about halfway up the upright shaft gave some support to the body; evidence for a similar ledge for the feet is rare and late. Over the criminal’s head was placed a notice stating his name and his crime. Death ultimately occurred through a combination of constrained blood circulation, organ failure, and asphyxiation as the body strained under its own weight

Jesus did this for us.

God could have said, that’s all I’m doing. If you accept Christ’s sacrifice, and invite Him into your heart, I will give you a brand new spirit and on the day that you leave the earth, you will be with me in paradise. That’s really enough isn’t it?

But, He gave us some promises, some ‘laws’ and a prescribed way to live that by His mercy and grace we could have an abundant life here on earth before our appointed time to depart.

It’s a two-way street though. God isn’t our fairy God mother handing out our requests whenever we demand them. I think most Christians would agree with that. What most wouldn’t agree with is is that maybe we don’t get the answers to our prayers because of the consequences of our actions. And maybe we never will in this life.

Consequence – ‘a result or effect, typically one that is unwelcome or unpleasant’

Let me point out three, which will be hard hitting I think, but worth exploring.

Relationships

In the beginning God said this:

‘For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united with his wife’ (Genesis 2:24)

God’s plan, God’s law. How He ordained it. Because we ignored this, we are now in a world where children are trafficked for sex; Where pornography is accepted as the norm and where divorce is as easy as going shopping, to name just three consequences of us ignoring the Genesis mandate. We want these things and we want God to give us our needs and desires.

Granted, you or anyone you know are probably not involved in human trafficking, but can’t you see that pornography and divorce, which are just as much as outside God’s plan, have slipped through the net and are huge in God’s church? These things are not what God wanted. They happen, we make mistakes, we make wrong choices. After we recognise our sin, we confess it, we repent and God, in his amazing grace will forgive us. BUT, and this is where we never go as God’s church by and large, do we live with the consequences of our choices which will mean us not having the best life that God intended? I don’t know for sure, but it seems to me that we want our needs met, but we don’t want to live righteously. David sinned badly, he repented in sack cloth and ashes, God forgave him, but he still lost a child. That’s not God being mean, that’s a consequence of David making very wrong choices.

Health.

I am learning so much at the moment about this that what I eat has changed dramatically over the last few months – 80% of the time at least. I’m not going to launch into what I think you should eat, but I am encouraging you to go and explore the links between what you eat and serious disease.

If you’re not sure where to start, read this book How not do die

For me, it’s been a life changer. It made me ask the question, what if we’re not getting healed from serious diseases because we are not looking after the bodies that Jesus gave us? Go on your own journey.

The easy one to pick on is diabetes 2. The whole world knows that this can be fully reversed by a change of diet. Don’t come out for prayer and then go for a Dunkin’ donut. We have responsibilities.

Finance

Simply a question here, are you robbing God by not tithing and sowing? Is your financial difficulty a consequence of that?

Now, here’s the thing with consequences, you can’t say, ‘I didn’t know’ and avoid them.

In 1865 a civil engineer named Egbert Viele published a topography map that is still used by geotechnical engineers 150 years later. Viele mapped the location of streams, marshes and coastlines, superimposing them over the street grid. When the sixty story Chase Manhattan Plaza was built in 1957, the chief engineer failed to reference the Viele Map. If he had, he would have realised that he was building right over a subterranean stream that created quick sand. (Chase the Lion, Mark Batterson,)

Engineers now have to spend time and money hardening the quick sand underneath the skyscraper. Ignorance is no plea.

Another obvious one is, you can’t jump from the Eiffel Tower and say you didn’t know about gravity (not that you could say because you’d be dead! But you get my point)

God is good. He never does bad things. He sees the big picture. We see a teeny weeny picture – usually of us and our needs – I want to encourage you and me to zoom out. See if you can see something where you made a wrong move and you won’t fully get what you want in this life because of that.

I’m not judging anyone, I only have to look at mine and John’s life to know that we are living in some consequences of our own because of wrong choices.

Don’t beat yourself up, but do have the guts to go and explore. God is a good, good father.

And if you’re still not convinced this could be a possibility, ask the foolish builder what he thinks.

D x