Maybe You Can Break Up with God

It’s not You, God. It’s me. I guess, what I’m saying is that it’s a personality difference. Your ways are higher than mine. Your ways make no sense. Maybe you can break up with God.

“I’m just going to live my life without you.” It’s simple. We’re incompatible.

Or it’s more like, “I trusted you. You allowed this to happen, letting me down just like every other person in my life. You think I’m going to trust you again?”

You can’t break up with God. He’s not a bad boyfriend or a bad father or a bad friend or a bad anything really. Right, right? He’s perfect.

And maybe that’s the problem.

Talk about incompatibility.

I tend to assume that God is like me, sharing similar flaws and short-comings. Maybe a little bit too vain, a tad too loud-mouthed about opinions, and a tendency for squinty-eyed judgments.

But He’s not. Like me, that is.

God is the perfect everything. He is not vain, and he whispers truths. He’s a good judge, and he’s consistent in his faithfulness, in his love, in his kindness to us. The story is he died on our behalf so we could be in eternal relationship with him.

Seeing that kind of perfection day-in and day-out just heightens the huge character differences between God and me.

Just as this incompatibility causes distance because it scares me or angers me, it’s also that which most magnetizes me to him.

I miss holiness. I miss faithfulness. I miss purity. I miss sovereignty. I miss perfect love that knows what’s best.

Penny tugged on my hand as children of all ages ran around the room during free play. I looked down on those giant blue eyes. “What’s up, Penny?”

The little girl raised both her hands to me so I lifted her onto my hip. Once there, she wrapped her tiny arms around my neck. Her voice came out small. “I miss my daddy.”

“Oh?” I spun the two of us around in a circle so our hair fanned out. “I miss my daddy, too. He’s across an ocean.”

“I miss my daddy.” Penny said it so calmly that I knew I could distract her from that missing for a little while longer so we played. And then, she zoomed on roller cars with other kids. But about fifteen minutes later, she was back.

“I miss my daddy.”

I pulled the little girl into my arms, and I made eye contact with one of my helpers, “We’re going to go find Penny’s dad.”

We rode elevators, climbed stairs, and stepped through hallways in search of Penny’s daddy. Many passing adults tried to win the little girl’s smiles, but she hid her face in my neck. Finally, I spotted Penny’s daddy. She squeezed between the grown men who sat listening to her daddy speak.

One moment Penny wasn’t in his lap, and the next moment she was. Her daddy stopped what he was doing to focus solely on his daughter with a hug and a whispered conversation. And she just hugged him. With a kiss, he set her back on her feet, and she scampered to me.

Let the little children come.

So you can break up with God. You can walk way. Shut the door. Quit your personal time with him. Become absent from church, small group, and prayer meeting.

But He’ll still be there. Teaching. Loving. Sharing. Waiting. Caring.

Moments will remind you of God. Memories flood you. New experiences will make you think of God. And then, you’ll miss Him.

The certainty of his love. His hand stabilizing your life. His perfection sharpening you into a nicer human being.

“I miss my Daddy.”

Perhaps you’ll need someone to carry you to where He is or maybe you can go on your own. I don’t know where you are in this journey (I only know where I am). Maybe you’re one of those men crowded around the Father already learning from him. Maybe you’re already sitting in his lap. Or maybe you’re doing the carrying today.

 

What I’m saying here is that opposites attract.

God is holy. I’m not. God’s all powerful. I’m not. God’s kind. I’m not. God’s loving. I’m not.

I’m attracted to God for these characteristics that he wrote the definition for, and yet, at the same time, because I’m not all those things, I’m inclined to project my own issues on God. I tend to see him as tyrant king and angry man.

But He’s not. Not a tyrant king. Not an angry man.

After all, he welcomes the little children even when they interrupt his meetings.

And when things don’t go according to my plan when I was trusting God (with my plan), I blame the failing of my plan on him. I trusted you. To make my plan work.

So perhaps, a break up with God is a bit too rash. But really, it’s time to climb back into God’s lap and remember who He is, not who I’ve made him out to be, and who He’s making me—a human set a part by his sacrificial and redeeming Love. And this love, it’s offered to every human.

Kind by Amanda Cook (Brave New World)

[edit 5/27/2016: I discovered that posting song lyrics on a blog is illegal so I removed Kind‘s lyrics from the body text. But please watch the linked video for the lyrics.]

 

 

To the God I tried to Break Up With,

Will you take me back?