First off: A Caveat. I mean no
disrespect to the musicians who wrote, or the worship pastors who choose these
songs. You have a high calling of ushering us into the Presence of the
Almighty, and I trust that you are holier than I am.
That said, I have noticed, in the past few
years, a trend in worship music to include, and indeed even focus on the
phrase, “God is for you, or us.” One song even goes on to say, “He is on our
side.”
Now, you might be thinking, “Heck yeah, God is
for us. Just look at all He’s done for
us.” Well, I know. God does love us. I cannot overstate this. His love, His
forgiveness are unfathomably deep toward us. And he is “for us” if by
that you mean that He is “for us” becoming like Christ. But that’s not
exactly what, I think, we are saying when we sing that God is “For us” or,
“on our side.” And I’ll tell you what I think Scripture tells us on the
subject.
First, let’s go to the story of Joshua (Joshua
5:13-15). If God was ever “for” anyone, surely it was the
Israelites. He sees a man approaching the camp, and he calls out, “Are
you for us, or for our enemies?” The man says, “Neither! But as the
commander of the armies of the Lord, I come.” Wait! That must be one of
those pesky Biblical typos- right. (Note: This is sarcasm, and I do not
believe the Bible to contain any typos.)
Shouldn’t that read, “I’m so totally for you. And as the commander
of the armies of the Lord, I come.”? Nope. Because, in essence,
he’s saying. I’m not for you. I’m not for your enemies. I’m for God. And if you had any sense
at all, so would you be.
Ok, hop with me to the book of Job. Job is
a tricky book. I don’t pretend to get it. But this is what I think
I understand: Job keeps saying that even though he did NOTHING to deserve
it, God is against him. Then all his friends keep telling him that he
must have done some bad stuff for God to be so against him. (But in
truth, Job really has done nothing wrong, and God is not against him, though He
has removed His blessings from his life.) Then God shows up and in
essence responds: Are you kidding me? I am God. I am frickin God.
Your side?! I’M GOD! Oh, and you’d
better pray for these losers, or I’m going to kill them for maligning your
name.
In both stories, God is not on their side, even
though they are super holy men who are doing exactly what God has asked of them.
Perhaps you are thinking, yes, but in the NT, in
Romans 8: 28 to be exact, doesn’t it say, “And we know that in all
things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called
according to his purpose.” Well,
yes, indeed, how very astute of you. But I believe that this verse is in the
broad sense that I mentioned earlier. God
does work all things our for our eventual good. Many times, we do not see that lovely twist of
the story on this earth, though. So,
please, hope in that glorious promise, that God does not waste our pain. God, being good, works all things according to
His nature for the ultimate good. Not exactly what I’m thinking when I
say that someone is for me, though.
But is there anything wrong with saying that God
is for us? Well, I think it is dangerous for one reason. It inverts
our position with God’s. It is a way to mentally haul our scrawny
haunches onto His glorious throne, and have Him offer His services to us.
This is a ridiculous picture. Because though he is a good King, He is
most assuredly King. And we will never be that. God doesn’t have to align Himself to our
plans. We need to be on His side, jump
into what He’s doing. Break our lives
over what breaks His heart. Know Him
enough to even know what His side looks like.
So, if we find ourselves awkwardly disagreeing
with a worship song, what to do? Nip out for a potty break? Sing
along anyway? Pretend to sing? Write a long blogpost, link it to
facebook, and hope your worship leader reads it?
