Of all life's difficult experiences, none would compare to experiencing God and discovering that he is as bad as you had been told or had feared. Hardship and sorrow is for a season, but living with your Creator is forever. Even suicide is no escape to the "giver of life" if you believe that He created you immortal and does not respect your free will choice of mortality. In the Eagles' words, "You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave!"
Imagine living through an experience that leads you to conclude that God:
Imagine living through an experience that leads you to conclude that God:
- is not faithful and forgiving (1 John 1:9),
- does delight in the death of the wicked (Ezekiel 33:11),
- does not keep His covenant of love to a thousand generations (Deut 7:9), and
- is pleased by acts of child sacrifice
(Jer 7:30,31; Jer 32:35; Lev 18:21; Lev 20:2-5).
Of all life's crucibles, such an experience defines extreme heat. Is it possible that God would place His chosen, covenant people in such circumstances so as to bring us face to face with our misconceptions of His character?
Now, consider the anguish of soul that Abraham experiences when he perceives that God is quite happy destroying the evil people of Sodom and Gomorrah, without regard to the righteous people living there -- the so-called "collateral damage" of warfare. Abraham politely and respectfully reminds God that He is the upholder of truth and justice, and surely He has a responsibility to do right (Gen 18:25). In this experience, Abraham is led by God through an experience where he confronts his misconception of God; that God might not be good and just. But a chapter later, Abraham has seen the depravity of Sodom directed at Lot's household, has seen the deliverance of his nephew's household, and is overlooking the smoking remains of Sodom and Gomorrah, settled in his understanding of God's goodness.
Again, consider the anguish of soul that Abraham experiences when both he and his son perceive that God is pleased by acts of child sacrifice. Now, Hebrews 11 tells us that Abraham reasoned that his son would pass through this experience of death to life again, but that is not fundamentally different to the pagan belief that the child would "pass through the fire to Molech". Either God likes this sort of thing or he doesn't, and this crucible experience brings Abraham face to face with his incorrect conception of God as a being who likes this sort of sacrifice. By the end of the chapter an Angel has verbally stayed his hand and a voice from heaven has re-established God's covenant with Abraham.
Moses describes this experience as a test of Abraham's character, rather than a test of his understanding of God's character. However, an observation leads us to consider other explanations for this experience. That is, God knows the end from the beginning, so we know that God didn't put Abraham through this experience so that He, God, could learn something about Abraham. Perhaps it was so that Abraham could learn something about God?
© Alister L Hunt PhD
5 comments:
Alister,
Great work! And thanks for making it available for all to share...
There are certainly times that our faith is tried, but God is good, and in the end His love does show... I think sometimes we just need more patience (like Job).
Interesting considerations, Al. Of course the other side is when the crucible experience is such that you cannot percieve God's presence or oversight and feel you have to stuggle on against the natural and unexceptional forces of chance with no "help" from the One who claims to be Everything to us.
Equally frustrating. I guess the guys mentioned at least had some kind of real relationship and direction from God, even if it was extremely challenging to their, then current, perspective of Him. Certainly in my life the current "growth point" is my perception of how being a son of the Most High God should play out in terms of gifting, His overriding the "chance" factor in life, favouritism, things like that. I guess I'm relating my God/son relationship to my relationship with my much-loved kids.
That is a great meditation Alister. The idea that God is leading us into experiences that bring out our misconceived God-images. It is both a simple and beautiful idea.
Your comments reminded me of a book a read a while back by Eugen Drewermann (the most influential and controversial German theologian since Luther) titled, "A Violent God-Image." The author suggested that human beings form their conceptions of God under the spell of fear. Even the biblical characters relate to God under this universal pall of fear.
Figures like Abraham, Job, and above all Jesus show a new way to relate to God. They all demonstrate the profound power of faith to liberate us from our crippling fears of God.
My belief is, that if God does not allow us to go through crucibles in life many of us would not have our feet planted on solid ground and would miss out on lifes most valuable lessons. We should be thankful even in the stressful times.
Eva
I visited a Naturopath recently for the purpose of getting off of some drugs that my Doctor had prescribed to help me over a crisis or two that had occurred earlier this year. She told me that she had met some tough people but that I was really tough. It made me think of the lesson on “the crucible”. As you know they are used to make steel. There are many grades of steel because of the many different uses but the best grades usually have higher carbon content so that they can be hardened and tempered. The hardening process is quite simple. The steel is heated to around 780 degrees Celsius and quenched in either oil or water. This makes it extremely brittle so it needs to be tempered. It’s the tempering process that is the interesting one. It takes longer and needs a watchful eye. If it is only lightly tempered it remains quite brittle and is limited to specific purposes because it is prone to fracture, but if it is well tempered it becomes tough and strong and can be used for a wider number of applications. Life can be a hard and ruthless teacher and some of us have to undergo the tempering process in order to produce those traits of character that will be required at sometime future. If God knows the end from the beginning and Abraham was learning more about God at the time of being asked to sacrifice his son then one could argue that God was demonstrating faith in Abraham because he new the end from the beginning and Abraham didn’t. If this reasoning is realistic then trials and tribulations should increase our faith in God because it is doubtful that a God of love who knows the final outcome would allow us to suffer trials that are beyond our capacity to endure. He would hardly be a God of love if he deliberately set us up for failure. So for the Christian I guess it could be reasoned that the greater the trials and tribulations the more certain one can be that salvation is sure and that God is taking care of him or her. From my current perspective it is a comforting thought anyway.
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