A SELFISH GOD

A brother came to Abba Mark and said, “Afflictions and sorrows have come on me in times of joy, stealing God’s grace and unsettling my prayer. What can I do?” The old man said, “Each thing comes to us in the right time. God’s Grace is not a possession but a gift He gives of Himself. Your prayer, made when you are at peace or when you are troubled, is the gift you give to Him.”—from Words of the Desert Fathers

“Bad things come in threes.” I’ve heard that since I was a boy. I’ve also heard “When it rains, it pours.” We count blessings individually, but problems and sorrows by the bushel basket.

It’s not because God doles out good things by the thimbleful, but because we’re surrounded by so many good things we become blind to them. It’s not the girl’s beautiful face we remember but the mole on her neck. Our childhood delight in birthdays becomes an adult certainty we don’t have many more of these left. Pre-nuptial eagerness fades to the seven-year itch.

“Everything comes to us at the right time,” Abba Mark says. Perhaps we’re not too impertinent if we ask “The right time for what?”

When is the right time for sorrow or pain? When’s the right time for cancer? For $5.00 a gallon gasoline? I need money for my son’s tuition now, but money’s tight. Is this the right time?

Given my druthers, the time I choose for sorrow and suffering, for disappointment and tears is—never. The world of my choosing is one where I’m Emperor of Byzantium, surrounded by golden domes, beautiful women and philosophers of intricate wisdom.

The world I would create would be intolerable for you and everybody else. That’s because I’m selfish to the core (of course, I’d be no more interested in living in the world you’d create than you would in mine, for the same reason—I wouldn’t be in the center of it).

The world each of us would create would be intolerable because it would be a world of spoiled brats: a world much in need of a Flood to wash clean its face.

Joys and sorrows come not when we choose but “in the right time.” In God’s time.

They come to build His Grace in us, to make us His own. That’s why we’re here. God doesn’t care about my Byzantine fantasies or Warren Buffett’s financial empire. He cares about whether you and I—and Warren—are willing to give ourselves up. He wants us to hand our lives over to Him. And He’ll allow sorrow to shake us to the core if that’s what it takes to get our attention.

Is God that Self-centered?

That’s the conclusion a lot of us come to. “Eat, drink, and be merry, because someday He’s gonna leave you a broken cripple breathing through tubes.”

It’s easy to understand that point of view—it’s one we share every time we sin. God isn’t going to give me what I want—so I better grab it while I can.

Is God that Self-centered?

“In the right time,” in God’s Time—in the fullness of time—God came down. He gave Himself up to us as He now asks us to give ourselves up to Him. We tortured Him and killed Him, just like we sometimes do to each other. What came out of Him wasn’t self-centered bitterness, but Love. He gave Himself up and showed us what Love looks like in this fallen world.

What is the “right time” for sorrow? When God knows I'm ready to be dropped into the cauldron of His Love.