God's One Request: Believe I love You

Excerpt: Anyone ever misjudge your motives? I do it to God. Like a child, I think 'No' means 'I don't love you'. Yet He says it because He does.  I weep assuming He doesn't care. He weeps because He does.

(This post was originally published as 'Knockin' on Heaven's Door' - May 31, 2018)

I officiated the funeral of a single mother whose son shared this memory. As a boy he was intimidated by a bully. His mother did her best to teach her son courage. She’d tell him “You’re bigger than he is! Get in his face! Tell him to leave! He will!”
 
But he couldn’t do it. He’d run inside whenever the bully showed up. One day she locked the door. Despite his plea, she refused to open it. She said "You know what to do. Now do it!". So he did. To his surprise, the bully ran off and never returned.

Weeks before she died, he said “Mom, do you remember the bully?” “I never forgot” she said. He replied “What I remember is you locking me out! Why didn't you let me in?” She said “Because it was the only way you would face your fears.”

"What I remember is this. As you pounded on the door, begging me to let you in, I was right on the other side. My hand on the lock. My head on the door. Weeping.”

I think of this mother a lot. Especially when life feels unfair. In an earlier post, I told of being forced out of a job for confronting a wrong. My cautions were later confirmed. So why did I lose my job if I did the right thing? I still don’t understand.

Despair: When I can't trust the only person I trust?

The only thing I do understand is that I don’t understand His ways. Especially in hard times. Yet that’s when I tend to accuse His heart. The God I once trusted now seems unfair. Life’s unwanted setbacks have a way of reshaping your view of God.

And yet if I don’t understand His ways, how can I be sure I'm right about His heart?
 
As a boy, this scared kid could not understand why his mother would lock him out. What child would? I can see why he felt it was cruel. I feel for him. But even more so for Mom. Imagine her pain if her son views her act of love as cruel or uncaring.

Has anyone ever misjudged you? Made assumptions about you that aren't true? 
Accused you of motives you don't have? Or intentions that you never thought of?
I hate it when I'm accused of feeling what I don't feel. And yet I often do it to God.

Especially if He doesn’t show up or at least speak up. His silence feels like absence if I’m in a crisis. I'll pray even more yet hear nothing back. So prayer turns into a rant. Where I say stuff to God I can't repeat. Yet I know He still listens. So I still rant.

I lost that job 25 years ago. I still don't know why. Sure I know the Biblical reasons for unanswered prayer. Yet the best answers fall on deaf ears if I'm outside a door and it’s my own father locking me out. The one person that I thought I could trust.

Many years later, I'll still find myself outside the door. Screaming “Open the door! As in now! Not in ‘the fullness of time’ please!” I still rant. But there’s one thing I'm slower to do now. I don't jump to conclusions about what He does or doesn't feel.

Like a son who finds his mother weeping behind a locked door, I found a Father who cares more for me than I'll ever know. Being a father opens your eyes. It's not easy for Dads to train sons to be men. As sons we often resent the training and the trainer. And what's involved in training? Things like bullies. Locked doors. Silence.

I am a paradox. On one hand, I'm so grateful for life lessons learned the hard way.
Yet just yesterday, I got so mad at God for not removing a weakness I’ve prayed for and worked on for years. Then I realized my weakness is often the only thing keeping me on my knees. And my greatest need is to feel my deep need of God.

Does God feel the same way I feel about me?

Another reason I don’t judge His heart as much as I used to is that I too have been wrongly judged. If I love you, nothing hurts more than your refusal to believe I do.

Someone once discovered a prayer journal that was dated in 1667. It belonged to Margie Kempe Dear Margie. She not only wrote out her prayers to Jesus. She also wrote what she felt Jesus was saying in reply to her. Listen to one particular entry.

"Far more pleasing to me than all your
prayers, pleas or acts of penance
is that you would believe I love you."
Jesus
(From Margie Kempe’s Prayer Pournal –1667)

Before you judge my motives, let me speak for my own heart. It’s a courtesy we all want. So why are many of us so reluctant to give it to God? Usually it’s because a bully's in the yard, the door is locked and He won't let us in. His refusal speaks for itself. So we say. It proves what He's like. Cruel. Insensitive. He's become the bully.

Yet as a parent, here’s what I feel when I have to ‘lock the door’. “I love you. But when you can’t believe it, you’re not the only one in pain. You see a locked door and assume I don’t love you. I locked it because I do. But you don’t see my love. Nor my tears. You hurt because you think I don’t love you. I hurt because I do.”  

I'm not a good judge of a person's heart. I'll convince myself God is disappointed in me. Only to have Him stun me with kindness.  Or I judge a person's motive and learn they're far more noble than I. And the most noble of all is the most merciful. Refusing to shame me while I deserve it. And so kind though I judge Him unfairly.

But how could a loving God . . . 

One of the reasons I misunderstand God's heart is because I misunderstand His judgments. It's hard to endure the steady flow of woes and warnings found in the prophets. The list of sorrows awaiting the wicked feels endless. And the God who thought it up sounds heartless. Sure they have it coming, but must He be so cruel?

So I find myself skimming or skipping whatever I don't like. Yet that's like telling you I only want to know the side of you I'm comfortable with. To ignore His words is to miss His heart. So I asked God to show me His heart in the parts I tend to skip. As I watch the way God judges men. I realize I have erred in my judgment of Him.

Example: I never knew how much God loved Moab until I watched Him judge her. The only reason I even read Jeremiah 48 is that my reading plan told me to. One of many chapters I tend to skip. All this hellfire and brimstone fury is too much for my tender soul. It's unsettling! Why? It messes up my view of God as a loving Dad.

My idea of God is a not divine idea. It has to be
shattered from time to time. He shatters it Himself.  
C.S. Lewis

I can’t stand cruel bullies or angry parents who scream at children. Yet God sure sounds that way in the judgment chapters. Jeremiah 48 is a scorching rebuke of proud Moab. With graphic descriptions of all the punishment awaiting her. I read on, hoping to find some hope. All I found is judgment. So where’s the love God?

I do realize Moab is receiving the judgment they brought on themselves. They are
evil, cruel, arrogant and given to idolatry. I get why their judgment must be fierce.
But when justice rolls down like a mighty river, what follows is a river of tears. Not
only from the evil ringleaders. But from their wives, their children and the aged.

Cries of anguish arise from Horonaim, cries of great havoc and destruction.
Moab will be broken; her little ones will cry out. They go up the hill to Luhith,
 weeping bitterly as they go … anguished cries over the destruction are heard.
  Jeremiah 48:3-5

For the compassionate soul, even if a sinner’s judgment is deserved, it’s still painfully hard to watch. As I read the punishments awaiting Moab, my heart began to break. And doubt seeped in the cracks. How can a good Father be this severe? 
I found myself wanting to throw my Bible at the wall and scream ‘Who are you?!?’

"For a loving God, you sure dish out punishment a lot!"

‘Moab will be destroyed as a nation because she defied the Lord’. God must judge evil. I get that. But His eagerness to punish her troubles my sensitive soul. ‘Terror and pit and snare await you, you people of Moab’, declares the Lord. ‘Whoever flees from the terror will fall into a pit, whoever climbs out of the pit will be caught in a snare; for I will bring on Moab the year of her punishment.” Jer. 48:42-44

Two prayers came to mind as I read Jer 48. 1st: “Can I read Psalms 23 instead?”
2nd: “Seriously God, if you want the world to know you’re a God of love, threats of violence and judgment are not the best way to win friends and influence people.
I know they’re not your chosen people. But they are people. Made in your image.”

I know better, but here's what I felt as I read. “So what this tells me is that you’ll show mercy to your chosen people and anyone who will love you back. But for sinners who don’t love you, they can just go to hell since that’s what they deserve."

I said I wouldn't skim or skip but my anger intensified as I pushed ahead. Listen to
His choice of words in v. 26. 'Let Moab wallow in her vomit. Let her be an object of ridicule.' I’m sure it can be explained,yet it still feels cruel. As if He delights in their misery. It’s a harsh accusation and I’m sure I’m wrong. This is just how it felt to me.

Then I read v. 31. I was shocked. Like slamming into a car you never saw. My idea of God slammed into God Himself. And I realized: He is not who I thought He was.

‘Therefore I WAIL over Moab, for all Moab I CRY out,
I MOAN for the people of Kir Hareseth.  
I WEEP for you as Jazer weeps, you vines of Sibmah.’ 
Jeremiah 48:31,32

There are tears many children never see.

I didn't see it coming. Like a son who never imagined his Mom might be weeping.
Why is God weeping? Moab's ‘joy and gladness are gone’. The ‘sound of their cry rises’. His heart is breaking as Moab endures the blast of His judgment. I thought of this Mom, weeping over the fear that paralyzes her son and now his view of her.

Then v. 36 ‘Therefore my heart moans for Moab like a flute’. Why? Because ‘On all the roofs in Moab and in the public squares there is nothing but mourning’. The cry of Moab has reached His ears and His heart. ‘How shattered she is! How they wail! How Moab turns her back in shame! Moab has become an object of ridicule’. v. 39

What He said will happen did. She's an object of ridicule. And it makes God weep. I resented what I saw as a cruel judge. But what motivates His justice is deep love. He never wanted this! He finds no joy in the verdict or the sentence. Even with Moab, a heathen nation. At the sight of her downfall , His heart is the first to break.
 
If a Scripture made me question God's love, I'd skip it or skim it. The problem is: I made assumptions about His heart without hearing Him out. My assumptions were wrong! God grieves over the pain His sovereignty allows. And the doors He locks. And when He must bring judgment due to our sin, it breaks His heart. Ezek.33:11

Sometimes God weeps behind the very door He locks.

When I picture this Mom leaning against the door weeping, I weep. For how often do I find a door locked and accuse God of cruelty? In this Mom, I catch a glimpse of God's heart. I am most loved by the very person whose love I question most.

My idea of a loving father? One who chases bullies away and never locks the door.
And if He does lock it, I often question His love. Is He even affected by my crisis? 
Yes! In fact, He's so affected by it, He's weeping behind the very door He's locked.

Reflection: Are you at a locked door God won't open? Do you question His love? Ask Him to at least open the door of His heart and tell you why. He may not but give Him a chance . How? Get in His Word and hear His heart. Before you judge it.