And they’re asking questions. Questions about how your world view shapes your actions. Questions about why sex trafficking still exists. Questions about how best to cram a whoopie cushion under a thick couch.
And one dark, un-askable question that none of us really like to talk about: What if God fails me? What if I put my complete confidence in Him, and He doesn’t come through? What if He doesn’t fill my car up with gas? What if He doesn’t get me a job? What if He doesn’t provide the $1,000 a month I need for support? What if He doesn’t heal my wife of terminal cancer? What if He doesn’t save my unbelieving dad?
The questions burn.
They ache, they cry, they weep, they scream. We think we’re dying. Maybe we are. And in the end, there we are, shattered, scattered in a million pieces at the feet of God Most High.
What happens when we ask God to pull through for us, and He blatantly doesn’t do it? When we know He can, and He knows He can. But He doesn’t. Because if He is still good (And if God is not good, what do we have?), and if He is still sovereign, and if He is still generous and loving and merciful and kind . . . then there must be something wrong with us. The problem must be on our end.
Pain must be our fault.
We must not be perfect yet. We must somehow need this pain - this seeming failure on the part of God - in order to make us into better people. Oh . . . but hold on a minute there. Even that answer can’t get us too far. Cause Jesus was perfect, wasn’t He? And He felt more pain than I’ll ever feel. And the Father failed Him in a way He’ll never fail me.
That moment of God the Father turning His back on His own bleeding, suffocating Son, dying a thief’s death on a Roman cross - that moment in all history may be God’s ultimate betrayal. The greatest example of God’s failure. Here was a perfect Man - a sinless, spotless, righteous Man - who needed rescue. And God didn’t do it. Worse! He actually turned His face away and pretended not to notice.Like a school teacher studying the rocks while the class bully beats up the wimpy nerd on the playground.
God did nothing.
How many agonized, throbbing prayers do you think He failed to answer on that day?
But out of that betrayal - out of God’s ultimate failure to act - came our ultimate story of redemption. If God hadn’t failed to save . . . we wouldn’t know Him today. It is only because of His failure that we are alive.
What if the same could be true when God fails us?
What if what we see as His betrayal is actually His deepest plan for our restoration? . . . What would happen if we stopped worrying that God might let us down? How high would we aim if we gave ourselves permission to fail?
