This may be one of many ways to describe the relationship between human beings and God. We are chronically anxious and God is chronically loving.
You can find this theme reoccurring over and over again throughout the Bible. Adam and Eve are anxious to know what it is like to “know like God” (Genesis 3). Abraham and Sarah are anxious about waiting on God’s timing (Genesis 16). Moses is anxious about answering God’s call (Exodus 4). Israel is anxious about starving in the wilderness and being destroyed by their enemies (Numbers 14). Martha is anxious about many things (Luke 10).
In every case, God meets our chronic anxiety with chronic love.
This description of God is a regular refrain throughout the Bible:
“God, God, a God of mercy and grace, endlessly patient – so much love, so deeply true – loyal in love for a thousand generations, forgiving iniquity, rebellion, and sin.” Exodus 34:6-7
I’ve been asked, “But what about when someone is being abusive?” A common way of coping with our anxiety is to be actively and passively aggressive. How do we love someone that is abusive? Do we stay and “take it”? Do we dish it back? Do we leave?
God told the Israelites to flee the slavery of the Egyptian Pharaoh rather than stay there and remain a less-than-human, corporate punching bag. God had better plans for them than to be enslaved. Pharaoh would need to figure out how to make money without abusing Israel. Pharaoh wouldn’t figure out how to do that unless Israel said, “I’m not going to be your punching bag anymore.” In this case leaving was loving. In many ways, it would have been easier for Israel to stay than to go. To go . . it took great courage. It took great faith. It took being in community. It took God. Interesting.
This is why we cannot say that separation and divorce are always wrong and unloving. To be sure, separation and divorce are not good if they are the easy way for us to avoid responsibility for our own habits, hurts and hang ups. Every effort must be made to work on our own stuff through counseling and prayer. Avoiding responsibility is not a loving thing to do. Sadly, some folks are avoiding responsibility by getting separated and divorced. And ironically, there are some folks who are helping their spouse avoid responsibility for their abusive behavior by refusing to consider a separation or divorce, even after living in an abusive relationship for years. This is because they can’t imagine that leaving would ever be loving. But here is the deal: Pharaoh isn’t going to find a new economy unless Israel leaves!
God is the same way with us. God will not allow us to make God into whatever we want. When we try and turn God into a genie-type wish dispenser, God will have nothing of it. God isn’t a smorgasbord for us to pick and choose what we like and leave the rest. God says, “Follow me.” “Worship God alone.” This effects everything else on our “to do” list because, as my friend Aaron Rousseau likes to say, God is our “to do” list. God won’t let us use God as a punching bag to avoid responsibility for our hurt, habits and hang ups either.
Even on the cross, when it appeared that God was letting us have our way with God, God was having God’s way with us! The suffering of God exposes our sin and God’s love. The cross is the place where our chronic anxiety and God’s chronic love intersect. It is the place where God leaves us (“my God, my God why have you forsaken me”), the place where God stays with us (“father forgive them for they don’t know what they are doing”) and the place where God dishes it back (“here is your son, here is your mother.”)
God has not allowed us to have our way with God ultimately. God has refused to go looking for another spouse. And God has given us back a new way of relating to one another, a new understanding of being sons and daughters, husbands and wives.
It’s nothing short of freedom, redemption, and new creation when God’s chronic love meets our chronic anxiety.
Questions for reflection:
Is there someone or someplace you want to leave in order to avoid responsibility?
How would knowing a “God of mercy and grace, endlessly patient – so much love, so deeply true” help you stay and take responsibility for your own behavior in this situation?
Do you know anyone who lives with someone who has an addiction and is abusive? What makes it hard to leave these relationships? How does the story of Israel and Pharaoh speak to you? Can “leaving be loving?” Why or why not?
Have you ever tried “playing Pharaoh” with God or another person – trying to use God or someone else for your own purposes? How has God or that person shown you that He will not be controlled/enslaved by you?
Pray for people with addictions and those living in abusive relationships.
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