A Child in Awe of You

I’m reading this book called “Searching for God Knows What,” by Donald Miller. I love that Miller makes some really in-your-face points, and he made one early in the book that really made an impact on me last night.

In the early part of the book, Miller spends a few chapters talking about Adam and Eve, and the Fall. I wouldn’t even begin to do his thoughts justice, but I will just say that he talks at length about how hurt God must have been after Adam and Eve dropped the ball and ate what they shouldn’t have and sinned. There had never been sin in the world before, and it took us how long to screw that up? I guess what really made me think was how betrayed God must have felt. He likened it to the emotional injury that one would feel after discovering that their husband or wife had been cheating on them. How angry that person would feel. How that person would feel that they spent so much of their love on someone, asking so little in return, and then pulling the knife out of their back. Ouch.

I’ve never been married, but I have been cheated on. I remember how I felt that weekend when the girl I was seeing very seriously told me that she had had a few too many a couple of days earlier, and gotten to know one of my friends a little too well. That hurt. I don’t mean it stung a little, like when you use an alcohol pad on a cut. I mean it hurt, a deep, gnawing hurt that hangs on for a really long time. I felt angry. I was so ticked off at her, I couldn’t even talk to her for days. I couldn’t believe that had happened. I ended up cutting the whole thing off. I tried, but we honestly never recovered after that. As sorry as she was that it had ever happened, we never recovered. She was honestly mortified that she had done that, and to my knowledge she never did it again. But the damage was done, and we truly never recovered.

So I was thinking about this pain in regard to God last night, and it occurred to me that I must have hurt Him so terribly in the past. Just as much as Adam and Eve did. And I’ve done it over, and over, and over again. And what’s worse, I’ll do it again in the future. And even though I know that I will, I can’t stop it from happening. No matter what I do, I can’t not sin. No matter how hard I try, I’ll screw something up, and hurt Him. I’ll cheat on Him.

Miller isn’t the first person to use that metaphor…James preceded him by quite a bit. James called those who would dabble in the ungodly “adulteresses” (James 4:4, NASB). It’s like knowing that you’re going to cheat, trying to your hardest not to do it, and then doing it anyway. It’s doing something stupid that you didn’t even see coming, that you didn’t even realize was something bad, and then looking back dumbfounded when you realize how screwed up it was. It’s like hurting the one you love, the One who loves you, over and over and over again.

He knew we would, He knew we couldn’t stop doing it, He knew that His Son would have to die to make it right. Miller makes the point that, as soon as God found what had happened, He knew what sacrifice would have to be made to reconcile us to Him. Jesus knew the pain He would have to suffer, and He knew that we would, even if unintentionally, spit in His face again and again. And He did it anyway. He and loves us anyway. And He doesn’t stop loving us anyway.

So I was at this worship service last night, and we were singing this worship song that I’ve sang a hundred times, but the words really sunk in last night in light of what I had been thinking about:

“And I’ll live to love You,
I’ll live to give You praise,
Yes I’ll live a child in awe of You…”

I can truly say, for perhaps the first time, that with this realization, I am truly in awe of Him tonight.

3 Comments

  1. I read that book last year.

    I think about that from time to time–how hurt He must be by my thoughts and actions. And yet, as much as it breaks my heart, I fail again and again.

    And to know that He knew every sin that would occur BEFORE He went to the cross–amazing!

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