Is He just messing with us?

Every time I hear the “At the name of Jesus, every knee shall bend.” I definitely think of that scene in The Lion King where Simba is presented to the animals and they all bow. That is barely relevant, but it is a fun mental image.

So I love that part of the reading because of cartoon animals. Well, also it is a really cool picture of community inspired by faith. But, being me, I take issue with another part of this past Sunday’s readings. In the first reading, God tells Moses to make a bronze serpent. If people look at it they will be cured. It seems confusing to me that God would do this to His people. It wasn’t long before that He wanted to wipe them out for making a golden calf. Even if God isn’t telling them to worship the snake, he is certainly tempting them. And if they were to build an alter in front of the snake but still praise the Lord at that alter, it would be exactly the same situation.

I hate when I get the feeling that God is messing with us. Like making people gay and forbidding them from acting on it. Or children with terminal illness. Or earthquakes in places that are still rebuilding from the last time. On a smaller scale, it feels kind of like when I was little and I was getting ready for school. I would always say I didn’t want to go. My mom would tell me that I didn’t have to and we could stay at home together and hang out all day. I would sigh and say no, I have to go.

My mom always knew that I would make the right choice in the end. She was just messing with me. Of course, her messing with me didn’t end in anyone getting hurt, but also stakes generally tend to be higher with God. So I guess the inconsistency with God could just be Him testing us to make sure we were listening to what He taught us the first time.

I am still working through whether this applies to the times we feel like God is messing with us now, or if it is just an explanation of a few Biblical events. One possible way to explain our struggles is that God is testing if we got the whole love is most important thing. Gay couples– that’s still love so don’t fall to the temptation to condemn it. Terminal illness– that’s harder, but maybe it is to remind us that there is more than this life. Natural disasters– I guess it could be that we are still a stiff necked people and we need a shock to the system to remember we need to take care of each other.

I know that there are plenty of holes in these answers, but I am 21 year old college kid with little formal education in religion. And even the most knowledgeable preacher can’t know the mind of God. So the best we can do is keep questioning and searching and trying to do good.