God's Priorities

God has some amazing love for mankind. Think about it, he gave up his only son so that all mankind could be saved from his own wrath. OK, maybe Jesus didn’t stay dead, after all he was resurrected three days later, but can you imagine giving you own son over to be tortured and ridiculed?  To do that for scum bag human beings really does show a great love for them.

 

Just try to fathom God’s love. It has to be so much greater than human love, because what parent would even consider allowing their child to go through what Jesus did for ungrateful, evil toe rags like some of us? Who would do it for guys like Hitler, or Stalin, or Sadam. God did. Amazing love.

 

Compared to God, our capacity to love must be so minute. We could never obtain the ability to love the way God loves us.

 

To me that’s the greatest love a human being can show to another. It’s as Christ said, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." How true is that? Who can argue that? So if a human being could show that type of love to every other human being on the planet, that is nothing compared to the love God has for us. His love is far superior, far more profound than any love a human can experience even for his own children. Amazing love.

 

Then I see photographs like the one above. I look at him and I feel sorry for him. If I was there, I’d do everything I could for that child and I don’t even love that child. But I’m not there. I’m here. And I admit that I am as guilty as any other human being on this planet who is not willing OR ABLE to take action to end this sort of suffering. Let’s face it, I don’t love like God and never will. Neither will any other human being. I don’t even love other people the way I love my kids and even if I could I probably wouldn’t want to give up everything I own to save starving kids in Africa. To me the problem just seems too big for one man to deal with anyway. But then I don’t love like God. My love is not that amazing, right?

 

But I can only imagine the horror I would be feeling if that was my own kid in that photograph. I can’t begin to think how devastated, how heart-broken I would feel knowing that was happening to my own flesh and blood. I would do everything I could if that was my own child in that photograph. I would give up everything I own to help that child.

 

Heck, I would never have allowed that to happen in the first place. I would have done everything in my power to make sure my child’s needs were taken care of and that everything was good as I could possibly make it for them. That’s what love is all about. It’s about caring for, it’s about meeting the needs of, it’s about doing everything in your power to make that person happy. Love is an ACTION, not just WORDS. Simply claiming to love someone is NOT ENOUGH.

 

Even knowing that my child was going to go to Heaven when she died, even knowing she is going to live in paradise alongside God, I could not just stand by and watch her suffer like that. I just couldn’t.

 

So imagine how much more appalling it is for God seeing scenes like this. How heart breaking it must be for him. How much yearning there must be for God to help this child. Imagine it. Remember his love is so much more profound than any love a human could have.

 

Amazing love.

 

But is it?

 

God does nothing. He stands by and watches without lifting a finger. In fact he wouldn’t even have to lift a finger. All he has to do is speak and all that child’s needs could be met. Every starving child in the world could be saved. In fact, from a word from God, no child should ever get to be in that state at all.

 

But God does nothing.

 

So where is this amazing love that Christians and the bible preaches about? How can a God with so much greater love than I stand by while his most precious loved ones are stalked by vultures and starving to death. I certainly couldn’t if they were my loved ones, but isn’t God so much more loving and caring than I am and aren’t those starving children so much more precious to him than they are to me? Really?

 

When it comes to the suffering of children, I cannot possibly blame a God I have trouble believing exists. It would be like me blaming the fairies in my garden for not keeping my lawns trimmed. But either God is an uncaring, apathetic being or he is non-existent. There is no other option for a God who claims to have greater love than even the most loving of humans. Even as a non-believer, I certainly don’t want to think of God as uncaring and apathetic, so the only other conclusion that a rational human being can make is that God does not exist. His lack of actions, (which should come with love, otherwise claims of love are worthless) make that quite obvious.

 

I can hear someone cry, "But God has put us on this Earth to show his love. He expects us to help the starving!"

 

Helloooooo? God requires others to show the love?

 

That's not showing love. That's passing the buck and getting others to show the love for you. That's like me getting another man to perform my husbandly duties. It would be like me sending my child to day care every day, even when I’m not working, but not just any old day care centre, but one that is run by other children the same age as my child. Other parents would call me irresponsible and uncaring. Certainly not loving.

 

You may claim that God is working through humans by sending out people to do the jobs for him because he loves everyone, but you'll note that he only sends a few people out to certain places. Millions are not getting to experience his love. Millions are starving and suffering and even God's army are not getting the job done. God however could change all that with a few commands and ouila…! all the starving would be fed and all the suffering would be fine. The fact that he doesn't, shows a cold-hearted God. In fact, God could prevent all the needless suffering in the first place so that he wouldn't need humans to show his love for him. But he doesn't.

 

Instead God spends his time pandering to the minority, helping them overcome their victimless sins, giving them nice weather for their church picnics, granting them safe journeys, blessing them with wide screen TV sets and new cars, helping them understand scripture, helping them get jobs, helping them make loads of cash. In fact God seems to be more concerned with blessing those in wealthy countries than in the poor ones. So god will do all these trivial things, but expects his followers to do what really matters? These are not the actions of a God who claims to love, and they show priorities that are seriously warped. What is more important? Feeding the starving or helping someone become the perfect Christian? Jesus seemed to think helping the needy.

 

In fact I have taken the liberty of putting together a list of prayer needs and which ones God tends to favour over others. Some of this may be open to debate as to which position they should appear, but it certainly paints a disturbing picture about God’s priorities.

 

Make your way down the list. At the top are the things that God is more likely to do for people and what people will give God credit for. At the bottom of the list are the things that God never seems to do.

 

Provide safe travel

Bless food

Help win at sports

Help do well at school eg, exams, studies

Help make an impression

Help something mechanical or electrical that isn’t working properly to function normally

Provide a spouse or a friend

Provide employment

Provide good crowds at church events

Help overcome fear/bad habits/trivial sins/minor trials

Get a touch from God

Provide the right words to speak

Help understand scripture

Help to maintain a good standard eg, as a parent, spouse, Christian, employee, etc

Praying for something bad to happen to someone or some people group (from lack of peace/joy to some kind of terrible punishment)

A prayer that involves God having to violate someone's freewill eg, to gain a favour from someone or to stop some kind of harmful behaviour

Provide safety in general

Provide finances

Provide fine weather

Provide rain in a country that gets a lot of rain

Provide additional strength/faith

Heal someone of some minor affliction

Help overcome real bad habits/major sins/real tough trials

Save someone’s soul

Bring joy and peace

Provide rain in a country that gets very little rain.

Heal someone with a major affliction

Heal of Cancer

Save starving child

Save someone from sexual slavery

Save children suffering abuse

Save someone who is being tortured

Heal of a fatal disease (not including Cancer)

Resurrect someone

Heal an amputee

Bring world peace

Obviously, most of the things at the lower half of the list are the things that would seem to be the most crucial, yet prayers for these go unanswered every day. Anyone can see, just by observation that the things God does do for people regularly, are the trivial things, even unnecessary things. When was the last time you thanked God for your good meal he provided, or for your safe journey? Perhaps God is so busy dealing with these minor issues that he doesn’t have time to save starving children or rape and torture victims? Or perhaps the reason why these more serious issues are not being dealt with is because God doesn’t exist and the answers to your prayers are just inevitable consequences of yours and the actions of others?

 

Christians make a lot of grandiose claims about God working in their life. How God has proven himself to them by what he does for them. (Funny that these people who claim that God has proven themselves to them – even before conversion - expect unbelievers to believe without proof. But that’s a topic for another time). God allegedly works in their lives and he helps them with things. You can see it and hear it for yourself:

God helped me overcome sin. He helped me shake my addiction to pornography, he helped me stop picking my nose, he helped me overcome jealousy.

 

God gave me that job. God helped me create a good impression at the interview. He gave me the right words to say.

 

God provided us with the funds we needed for this new car. God blessed us with this new wide screen HD TV set!

Thank God for this food he supplied us.

Thank God for this lovely weather he’s provided.

Thank God for giving us a safe trip.

It was God who gave us this victory. He gave us the strength to overcome the other team.

Thank God for this award. If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be standing here.

Every human being has inside them what it takes to accomplish many of these things, without the need for God. For most of the above, all they need is strong motivation, positive thinking and a never-say-die attitude. Oh and it really really helps if they’re born into a wealthy country!

 

But yet for Christians, it is God who helped them.

 

In fact many would say that you should never attempt to do anything in your own strength, but always look to God for support and guidance. But yet we know all these things can be accomplished by the individual because non-Christians accomplish these things. Even evil people accomplish these things.

 

So why is it that God will go to all this trouble to help Christians out with all their petty little issues, yet expect humans to do all the work when it comes to feeding and clothing the poor?

 

It would be all very well if it were practical for humans to feed every starving child or protect every child from harm, but it’s not. Humans cannot get their act together in this matter and it may be many years before they do, if at all. Meanwhile, millions of children are starving to death, are abused and murdered, children who are powerless to do anything to save themselves.

 

Many of those children over there are no doubt crying out to God for help, but that help doesn’t come. They can’t use willpower or positive thinking to overcome their problems. No matter how motivated or determined they are, they cannot succeed. That will not put food in front of them.

It’s not practical for God to expect us to do this, especially when he himself has the ability to fix these problems just by speaking.

 

So why doesn’t he?

Is it because he’s so busy helping some Christian give up smoking?

 

Is it because he’s busy helping Mel Gibson produce and direct cool movies about Jesus?

 

Is it because he’s helping some Christian boxer overcome his Muslim opponent in the boxing ring?

 

Or is it because he doesn’t exist and horrible things happen to everyone?