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You’ll no doubt have noticed that CS Lewis is one of our favorites at Everyday Devotions, and once again he illustrates a key point in just a few lines. One of the famous descriptions of the lordly Aslan in the Chronicles of Narnia is “he’s not a tame lion.” The implication is that He is the King, but He’s not at someone’s beck and call.
Now this may seem strange to us, to think that those poor dumb animals in Narnia thought they could control Aslan, but the truth is we do the same thing all the time. Don’t think so? Read on.
“IF YOU CAN…”
In today’s chapter (Luke 4), Satan is tempting Jesus. In the course of two of the temptations, Satan starts his wheedling with the phrase “if you are the Son of God,” before he presents various challenges to Jesus. What is he really saying? If you have the power you claim to have, do this thing to prove it.
Sound familiar? How often have you said “if you are really there, God, heal my mom’s cancer;” “if you really want me to believe in you, help me get a good job;” Or heard skeptics say “If God was real, He could just appear to everyone and everyone would believe in Him.”
It’s not so much that we have a hard time believing in God, we just want to believe in God that acts the way we think He should. He should eliminate or prevent Hitlers, heal our family’s illnesses, provide for our financial needs, and generally act like Daddy Warbucks. We want a God that behaves himself like a good God should.
UNPREDICTABLE GOD
But God isn’t Warbucks, and He’s not even Aslan, who always swoops in at the last minute to save the good children who work hard. Sometimes the good guys lose; sometimes the 25 year old father of three has a freak accident at work; sometimes innocent children are killed in the course of war. It’s hard to see the hand of God in the senseless tragedies of the world.
So what do we know? We know that “all things work together for good.” Not all things are good, but all things work together for good. Sometimes we see how those things work out, and sometimes not. We may see that a particular tragedy made us stronger, or drew us closer to God, or helped bring an unsaved family member to a relationship with Jesus. And sometimes it seems there’s no rhyme or reason to a tragedy. Faith is about trusting that God is working for our good, even when we have no clue what He’s up to.
Would you trust a tame God that only acted when you approved?
Once I thought about things like: why such information is for free here? Because when you write a book then at least on selling a book you get a percentage. Thank you and good luck on informing people more about it!