John Reeves did an excellent job yesterday talking about the first chapter of Malachi (you can listen to his sermon on our media page).  In this chapter, I was totally struck by how fast we are to accuse God of not loving us.  I have done it, you have done it, we all have done it.  Just let one thing go wrong in life and we often turn immediately to God and say, "If you really loved me, this would have never happened!".  At this moment we totally forget the millions of good things God has done for us and focus only on this one painful instance.  In essence, we become like Satan and become an accuser of God, not a lover of God.  This was what Malachi so pointedly called out in his day when the people were suffering some and thus asked God, "How have you loved us?"  God could have answered this in a myriad of ways (I saved you from the Egyptians, I gave you the promised land, I provide rain and crops for you, I have given to you my temple where I am worshiped, and on and on), but He just reminded them that they were chosen by Him and others were not.

In our day, I often see the same thing.  Generally speaking, people that are not following God are mad at Him because of some incident or some great tragedy in their life.  Something very painful happened and they looked at the heavens and said, "If this is how you love me, then to heck with you!  I am done with you."  So they reject God once and for all and effectually become slaves of their own evil desires, which God allows (Romans 1).  This never works out very well and they wind up enslaved to their greed, or their anger, or their addictions, or their lack of contentment, or their children's dreams, etc., etc.  The point is that they do wind up serving another master, it is one of their own desires which is out of control.  They wind up here because they were mad at God for allowing pain to come into their lives.  I guess somewhere along the way someone falsely told them that God would never allow pain into their lives??  In fact, God said there would be a lot of pain in our lives, but that it was only for a season, only for this life.  Once we leave this life after 70 or so years, then we are free to enter a life together with God that is absolutely free from pain, that is the promise.

So how do we respond?  We respond with grace, with understanding.  We have all been there, some in more dire circumstances than others, but we have all been there, putting God in our own little courtroom and trying to cross-examine Him to see why He allowed some painful circumstance in our lives.  But God will not allow us to cross-examine Him (see Job), for He is not a witness nor a plaintiff nor a defendant, He is the judge.  So we need to love and support people and help them through this natural inclination and lead them to a better place, a place where they are willing to trust God with the pain that comes in life, not accuse Him with it.

I have a personal story of this and have an even more recent one involving my brother.  Hope to share those with you in the near future.

Todd