God's Not For You

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?  

Bethany