“God is not Superman who is struggling with his destiny. … Neither is He a genie or fairy who has no will of its own but is just there to grant our every desire. God has a clear will and plan, and God’s desires are priority above ours.”
We all love our comics and Disney classics, I myself am a big fan, but are we taking the much loved fairies, genies and mighty superheroes and projecting them on our image of God?
God’s image has been gravely tarnished over the course of human history and this period is most definitely not an exception. The image each generation has of God is one based on what we want God to be and do for us in our lives. However, we tend to forget that God is who He is regardless of what humans imagine Him to be– the same yesterday, today and forever.
God is not Superman who is struggling with his destiny. He is not Peter Parker that is trying to balance his romantic life with his role as Spiderman. Neither is He a genie or fairy who has no will of its own but is just there to grant our every desire. God has a clear will and plan, and God’s desires are priority above ours. And that is the basis of this creation: God’s will above ours no matter what. We follow God, not God follows us.
Every hero has an antithesis. If God is seen as the hero, the devil must be the villain. Then again, villains are not what they used to be. Now they are misunderstood characters or their story wasn’t told right. Maybe I am overreacting, but villains are being painted out to be the good guys as if looking for sympathy. For example, the film Maleficent that tells us that no one narrates the witch’s story right. Other villains are made out to be comical characters like Gru in Despicable Me.
So, is it possible that there are some people out there who think that no one tells the devil’s story right, or that God’s judgement of the devil is unfair? Most likely, yes, there are people who think this way. The danger is when we don’t understand the deeply running deceit and perfected cruel craft of the enemy, the one who had the audacity to stand among the angels and challenge God, then we won’t take sin seriously, making us oblivious to the devil’s plans and daggers of temptation. When we don’t take the devil the liar and destroyer seriously, we won’t give God the Creator and Redeemer the glory and honour He deserves. These things we read and watch are subtly proving detrimental to our perceptions. God is not Superman and the devil is not Maleficent.
God may be a parent, a Father and Mother, but He is not a 21st Century parent that idolises their children. He does not subscribe to this form of child idolatry to give your child everything and anything so that they don’t have a bad perception of you as a parent or they don’t ‘feel bad’ when they see other children in school getting things they want. Ironically, the greatest form of this worship is seen during Christmas where parents offer their sacrifices in the form of excessive indulgence. God is not like that. God’s character and nature is not dependent on our thoughts and attitudes. God remains the same throughout the ages and the Creator will carry out the divine order.
I have come to understand why time and time again in the Bible God told humans, “Fear me”. And most definitely God hasn’t changed between the Old Testament and the New Testament, or two thousand years and now. God is the very same. He blesses and He judges; He is a Consuming Fire, Majestic, Mighty, and Awful; yet Merciful and Gracious. Not ‘awful’ in the sense that the word has come to mean today but ‘AWE-full’. God’s greatness cannot be imagined or fathomed. His ways and plans are beyond our imaginations.
The problem with our faulty image is when Superman or fairy godmother or even 21st century parent fails to manifest, God is labelled as distant, uncaring or fictional. This image we have of God is why many people are disappointed at the appearance of suffering. Why people are confused when their wishes are not granted. The God people think about that prevents all suffering and strife like Superman would does not exist – the atheist is right in that respect.
Would a superhero permit such horrors on innocent Job in the Bible? No. Neither would a fairy godmother or genie. Heaven wanted to prove a point with Job’s life. Job lost his property, livelihood and all ten children on one day, and that wasn’t enough. God allowed the devil to take his health. Job was inflicted with leprosy. A man who once sat with elders, in positions of honour, a man that everyone wanted to be associated with, that loved God and served Him with his whole heart, whom God Himself described as blameless, became an outcast, and God allowed it. God permitted the devil to tempt Job in this way so as to prove Job’s devotion to his Creator. Heaven had a wager on Job and in God’s eyes Job’s trial was a success story. How could a superhero call such suffering a success?
As Christians, there is a wager on all our lives. Once we make that decision to follow Jesus like Job we become the devil’s prime targets that is why we need the full armour of God – not to prevent the storm but to withstand it. Don’t get me wrong, God does rescue us from trials, but other times like gold we have to go through refining fires to come out stronger, purer and more beautiful than before.
Like Job’s friends, who tried to comfort and advise him with faulty philosophies about life, we humans have the unspoken theory that he who does good deserves nothing less than good and the person that does evil should be rewarded with evil. After all, that’s fair enough. Furthermore, the church has repurposed this theory to suit its members: A Christian is automatically entitled to endless abundance while non-Christians are…well, who cares? This ideology has led to the birth of the prosperity gospel amongst other things. Christians need to revisit righteous Job. Perhaps you are not a Christian but you still subscribe to the theory that good things happen to ‘good people’, well same thing applies: take a look at Job.
Before his suffering, Job and his friends had the same misconceptions about the way life works; but after the ordeal and after the Creator responded to their theorising and queries, they understood and saw God clearer. This new revelation of God after difficult times strengthens our faith. Indeed, we probably would never comprehend the infinite majesty of God perfectly on this Earth but our knowledge grows and grows.
Throughout his suffering Job questioned and asked God, “Why? I have been good to you. Why are you allowing this to happen?”. He just couldn’t understand why God would permit such a thing. To him, it was all unfair. In the end, God’s answer was:
2 Who is this that obscures my plans with words without knowledge? 3 Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me. 4 ‘Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. 5 Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? (Job 38:2-5 NIVUK)
In other words, “I am God, you are not. I created and crafted the earth and all its wonders while you know nothing”. Job responds to God by apologising for speaking of things he didn’t understand.
We will never fully understand why bad things are allowed to happen and this is difficult to swallow. One has to accept the fact that we will never know certain things. Personally, as a scientist, this is scary. If you are repulsed by such a God, I understand. But it all boils down to the realisation that this life is not ours but God’s. Just as Jesus had to submit to the will of God, we also have to bow down to it. Giving up this hold on life is the toughest thing anyone would ever do.
Moreover, how does one reconcile all this with ‘ask and it will be given, knock and the door will be opened’?[1] Surely, that sounds a lot like genie and fairy godmother. Again, we have to be in tune with the will of God:
14 This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. (1 John 5:14 NIVUK)
26 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. 27 And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God. (Romans 8:26-27 NIVUK)
We ask and receive according to God’s will which we know by operating in the Spirit. He hears us and answers, though in ways we might not have imagined.
Above all, one thing I know is that God’s concern is not for the now (as a superhero’s is) but for eternity, an infinite number of days that we are all going to face. All that God works and plans is on this scale. We are not paltry beings that are crushed like ants and that’s it. We live on. In a sense one can say that life truly begins at death – at least for those who follow Christ.
So, despite the difficulty and all the unheroic moments of life, I maintain these words:
17Though the fig-tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the sheepfold and no cattle in the stalls, 18 yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Saviour. (Habakkuk 3:17-18 NIVUK)
Fear[2] God and take the devil and his schemes seriously. Do not let the urgency and intensity of these facts be diluted.
[1] Matthew 7:7
[2] Fear as in the synonym of ‘deep respect’
The Mark 8 Christian 