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February 19

God’s Strange Way

There is a strange contradiction in the way we so often live the Christian life. We so easily take God for granted. And we so often get upset when God does not respond to our cry for help in the way we want.

One of the flaws of the Christianity of the modern world, particularly in the West, is that Christians have the idea God is there just for them. They are the center and God is there just to bless them.

There is little idea that things should be the other way round. God is the center and we should live our lives for the glory and purposes of God.

This flawed way of living the Christian life means we have

expectations regarding the way God should act towards us and on our behalf. Usually, we have the idea that God should jump to our attention. Some have the idea that God is their butler.

That things are different is a lesson we need to learn, however

confronting and painful that may be. St. John Chrysostom begins to point us in the right direction. He writes, God “does not cut calamities short at the outset, but averts them only as they approach their climax when

almost all have abandoned hope.”50 Thus, God does not wrap us up in

cotton wool. But God does come to our aid.

And God is not at our beck and call. God has his own sovereign way with us. God’s way with us is one of love and care, but so often God works differently than our expectations. Thus in faith we have to embrace God’s strange way with us.

Prayer

I will with difficulty bend my will to yours, O God, and embrace your mysterious way with me. Amen.