God's Love Is Constant--Even When It Does Not Feel Good

Tuesday of the 16th Week in Course

Recently I heard a homily that really pricked my ears, and almost prompted me to jump up in the pew and object. The preacher said something like “the God of the OT is not One that I worship,” because in the Scriptures we read some pretty nasty stuff. Psalm 137 is by a Levite in exile, probably after the destruction of Solomon’s Temple, that wishes evil things to happen to the enemy I hesitate to name. Death, certainly, but a particularly violent death. That seems to conflict with our understanding of the God of the New Testament, revealed by Christ to be all love and compassion.

Well, the prophet Micah tells us of God “pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance[.] He does not retain his anger for ever because he delights in steadfast love. He will again have compassion upon us, he will tread our iniquities under foot. . . .cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. [and] show faithfulness to Jacob and steadfast love to Abraham, as [He had] sworn to our fathers from the days of old.” When the Lord showed Himself to Moses on the mountain, He declared Himself to be a God of compassion and loving kindness–in Biblical language–forever.

So when we read of the destruction of Jerusalem and exile of thousands of Hebrews, the scattering of the Ten Tribes, the destruction of Sodom, and the killing of every heathen in Jericho, what should we think. First, consider that poor Levite sitting on the banks of the Tigris in Babylon, images of a burning Temple and slaughtered priests and princes embedded in his mind. How does he feel? Have we never felt so wronged, so surrounded by injustice that we imagined the perpetrator arrested, maybe even executed?

How does God’s love feel? Sometimes we almost sense the loving presence of God, in a comforting sermon or service, in a quiet family scene, under a shade tree feeling a refreshing breeze. When I’ve done something morally wrong–and I’m a sinner just like you–I feel God’s love as a troubled conscience. Would it be loving of God to confirm me in my sin, a sin that has hurt my relationship with God and others and even myself? Not in the least. So the challenge is to accept whatever comes from God as his loving attention, even when that attention is at best unpleasant.

So when bad things happen, or bad feelings come, we can pray with the psalmist: “Restore us again, O God of our salvation, and put away thy indignation toward us! Wilt thou be angry with us for ever? Wilt thou prolong thy anger to all generations? Wilt thou not revive us again, that thy people may rejoice in thee? Show us thy steadfast love, O LORD, and grant us thy salvation.” If the bad result is because of my sin, I will repent and confess and ask for forgiveness, which God is always, in His unending love, always ready to give with the grace to help us avoid that sin in the future.

Given that kind of response to the Father’s constant love, however it may feel to our weak human nature, we can have an assurance that we are Christ’s mother and brother and sister, because we do the Father’s will, just as Jesus did the Father’s will all the way to His passion, death and resurrection.