Chuck the List!

Have you ever stopped to imagine the parties Jesus attended? We get a glimpse of the pressure one hostess placed on herself in the account of Mary and Martha in Luke 10. The events of a gathering at the home of Simon the leper are recorded in Matthew 26. A meal is a wonderful way to bond with friends and family, but if you're hosting, there can be much to do. Normal life goes on: duties like laundry and meetings, homework, car lines, softball rosters. Adding the shopping and preparing of a special celebratory meal, the extra-meticulous cleaning of public spaces, and the fielding of questions like, "Are the McFlys coming?" and "Why are we doing this again?" require extra energy and organization. Coffee helps with the former, but for the latter...? It's The List to the rescue! We all know The List. Starting with the planning, who we'll invite, what we'll prepare. Then a more detailed version, what we'll need from the store, housekeeping that needs to be addressed. As the event approaches, it's a day-by-day organizational chart, who will do what and when. As hours tick by and calendar alerts summon, The List grows (hopefully) shorter and shorter. Done! Done! Done! The evidence of how well we've met our obligations. Just prior to the last morsel being eaten and the last fork being washed, we know the satisfaction of a completed plan: The List is complete!

Maybe you've given God a list. Oh, you may not be so brazen as to say, "God, if You really love me, You'll check these boxes one by one," but perhaps, somewhere in the back of your mind (or your heart) a list has begun to form. A list of the times God has "let you down". The healing you didn't get. The struggle that's gone on for yeeaarrss. The wonderful things others have received --things they'd never really wanted --but things for which you have cried and begged and still not received. All those blessings you crave --good things, like children who serve the Lord or the money to visit your mother on hospice or one person (Just one!) at your job who is interested in hearing the Gospel. The List has begun to form, and sooner or later, it just might result in the conclusion that God is not good. At least, not to you. The List and its completion would be the evidence you need to be sure God loves you.

I have to admit, not too long ago, I came face to face with my list. I hadn't even realized it existed. I just woke up one day feeling as though something was "off". The next day, I didn't have the same excitement I normally experience when it's time to be alone with Jesus. Later that day, I found myself feeling angry and uneasy; it was difficult to pray. By the time I awakened the following morning, it dawned that I'd not had one thought of Jesus as I laid in bed the night before. Little by little, my relationship with Jesus was slipping away. Oh, He was still there --that's for sure, but something (The List) had come between us. Somewhere along the line, I'd hardened myself to His love for me. I'd convinced myself that love looks less like a good, sovereign God providing what's best for me, and more like the things "everyone else" was getting. 

Here is the truth in the Scriptures. From Genesis to Revelation, we see a good portion of God's plan revealed to human beings; but it is just a portion, not the whole. Glimpses, veiled and spoken in finite language. And we still have trouble understanding it! God's ways are beyond ours. He knows the end from the beginning. To confine Him to a list we have developed is absurd! The List I had unknowingly formed came about because I had a plan, because I thought my plan was better than God's, and because my plan had replaced God on the throne of my heart. Not only was it forged in my own arrogance, it was forged in utter foolishness! The List contained --I thought --the proof I needed to convince me of God's loving care. But these were "blessings" tethered to this life alone, bound by natural law, and just a fragment of the big picture. Evidence rooted in all we are capable of imagining will never measure up to what God can do. We think and dream within the boundaries of the natural world, but God is Spirit, limitless and timeless. Would healing convince us we are loved? Maybe we long to see our children serving Jesus. Or missionaries kept safe. Time with good friends. A job. Holiness in me right now. These are all good things! Why wouldn't God grant our requests? Because there's more. So much more. More than even the best brains among us can imagine. No one on earth is big enough to grasp the fullness of God's Kingdom plan! God is not withholding blessings because we are not loved; God is refusing to allow The List to stand in the way of His infinite, perfect love for us!

Western culture, in particular, is fixated on autonomy and self-reliance. Adults can "do as they please." We love a "self-made man." But the truth is, every last one of us will answer to our Creator. We will do it through our Mediator, Jesus Christ, or on our own. (God, in His Holy Bible is good enough to warn us in advance that only through Christ will we stand.) If we are followers of Jesus, we receive the goodness of God, His generosity in giving as well as His generosity in removing and withholding. And while the evidence may not always appear in full, we can celebrate the blessing of His goodness being so much greater than the completion of The List.