July 18, 2009
Psalms 103:9
He will not always strive with us;
Nor will He keep his anger forever.
We make an understanding of the divine so complicated. At first inspection, this verse would appear to be a threat to humanity. Get your years together or else! While there is some truth to this understanding, the intent of this verse and the all scripture is to issue an invitation to the reader make a choice.
Only the disjointed would envision a God who dictates goodness and allows only the possibility of obedience. The God of Scripture gives we humans the necessity of choice. The gift of freedom means that we are encouraged to chose the Love of God. Conversely, freedom allows us to choose the self centered path. Love is not love if both possibilities are not a part of the plan.
Will our lives be God centered or self centered? The beginning parables tell of the garden of Eden and the tree of choice. From the beginning, we humans have chosen amiss, we have chosen our own way. This predisposition is in our blood. Salvation should be understood as a second chance choice to explore the God centered life.
This choice controls our future but our days remain exposed to the negatives of life. They include hard ground, intense labor, thorns amongst the edible fields, sweat to till the earth until death, meaningless death. (Gen. 3: 17-19) Without distorting scripture, one could also add disease, war, excess in all descriptions, injustice among man, hatred, greed, famine,prejudice, etc.
These life negatives or failures can become a blessing as they set the stage for God centered choices. These choices are extremely difficult, they will be continually tested. The Psalmist speaks to this struggle as God’s “striving”. This is a positive word not one of condemnation. The choice for God’s Love, however, is not for the faint of heart.
The context of this verse is a terminal context. There will come a day when God becomes weary of our rejection of the divine choice. Some expect the cataclysmic termination of human kind. Some would disagree. God has not wearied of our failures in the last four thousand years so that any attempt to downgrade His patience is absurd. That being said, the scripture says in this verse the day will come.
One preferred understanding would be that “that day” will come because He will no longer need to prod human kind to make the God centered choice. Four thousand years later this scenario is still so implausible yet positively exciting. There may come a time, on this side of death or beyond, when all men shall choose aright. In that Day, there will be no need for an angry disappointed God.
The question believer’s must ask is, will the next choice be God centered? The batting average of even the best of us is somewhere around baseball’s 300 mark. To those of us whose average is much lower, we can assume that another opportunity to choose aright is immanent. To those of us who have no need for God’s striving, may He have mercy on our souls.
G.Goslaw
Victorville, CA.
