Two Strange Stories

There are two stories in the Bible that have captured my attention over the past several days; the first one being the story of God’s calling Abraham to sacrifice his son, and the second one being the story of God’s calling Hosea to marry a whore. Anyway you cut this “pie,” the end result is the same—God is sometimes strange, even weird. To say the very least, He does not fit into the narrow parameters we use to define Christianity!
Suppose for a minute that you are a member of the First Local Church in Somewhere, Alabama, and you go to your pastor seeking his confirmation concerning what God has recently told you, namely, that He wants you to sacrifice your son in order that some folk over in Georgia and Mississippi might be blessed. What do you think his response might be?
Take another minute and pretend that you are the chairman of the Board of Deacons of the First Local Church in Macon, Georgia, and you go to your pastor to seek his confirmation concerning something God has recently told you, namely, that He wants you to marry a whore. What do you think his response might be?
Unless you opted out of church at age three and have had no more contact with it, I feel confident that you know the responses of both these pastors! The former would probably say something like this: Are you crazy? God did not tell you to sacrifice you son! The voice you are listening to is the voice of the devil! Surely you know that one of the Ten Commandments clearly forbids murder! You will not only wind up excommunicated from our church, but you will also land in jail, or maybe even in the death chamber!
The latter’s response would be something like this: God did not tell you to marry a whore and you know it! You are listening to the voice of the devil, and you know that, too. You do this and I will excommunicate you from our church.
Can you see what I am trying to open up for you? God does not fit into the narrow parameters we use to define Christianity! I recently read this in one of Preston Gillham’s newsletters: God created man in His own image, and man has returned the favor! Now, wasn’t that nice of us! I doubt, however, that He caters much to our fanciful notions! To be sure, He will not be defined, not by the likes of you and me—period.
By the way, I am very thankful that Abraham and Hosea put more confidence in God’s opinion for the way their lives should be lived, than they put in the thousand’s of opinions they probably received from their respective religious communities. Sometimes (probably often) it is better (much better) to be excommunicated from the local church than to be controlled by the opinions of those so foolish as to believe that they know God’s will for your life.
And one more thing: I have willingly excommunicated myself from this monstrous fiasco we call “Christianity” and have subjected myself to the freedom of pressing on to know Him, whom to know is eternal life. I choose to graze in His green pastures, drink from His still waters, and rest beneath His pinions, rather than beneath your opinions!
I just thought I would remind you that His ways really are bigger (much bigger) than our ways AND I also thought I would remind you that most of what we know about Him really isn’t about Him at all. It is about our efforts to fit Him into our pea-brained notions of who we think He should be.
I will conclude with this: I can only trust that He won’t ask most Christians I know to do something anywhere near as bizarre as what He asked Abraham and Hosea to do because it, simply, will not get done, not by them, anyway! Their “image” of Him will not allow it!