Stiff-Arming God

Thinking of football highlights, I remember a runner going down the field full steam with an approaching tackler about to meet him. But, the runner pushed out a stiff arm in the tacklers face and continued going down the field unimpeded to the goal line. Sometimes I think we stiff-arm God. We move down the fields of our lives, enjoyed the speed, the force of our selves. When the God of universe would like to meet us, not tackle us, but lovingly embrace us, we stiff-arm God, going our own way to our own goal line to celebrate ourselves. God gets left back there on the field somewhere. But when catastrophes come and circumstances tackle us, throwing us to the ground: where is God? Doesn’t God care? What kind of God would let this happen? A God that had been stiff-armed, left far down the field and out of lives; a God that would have loved to embrace us. But all God ever got was left out of our game after being stiff-armed. So we try to blame God for all we are not, all we have failed to embrace, and the consequences of our choice to live for ourselves.

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