Hung up with God

What’s your hang up with God?

Everyone has one. You’ve asked God for something, and He hasn’t delivered.

You built some expectation, put your trust in those verses and passages that support your claim, waited an polite length of time before you started building up some resentment, but He didn’t do what you wanted Him to do.

And now you’re pouting. And hurt. And see that little brown scar on the corner of your heart? It won’t heal because every time you think about the situation, you rip off the scab and you’re back in square one.

You know what I’m talking about.

So I ask you, what is your hang up with God?

In I Samuel 6 is the story of David’s hang up with God. He set out to do a good thing. Bring the ark of God back home.

And he didn’t do it on a whim. He gathered the leaders and discussed it. He asked God and he blessed it. He sang and rejoiced and worshiped and raised his hands.

Until one of the men, Uzzah did the unthinkable.

He touched the ark of God’s presence.

And died.

Whoa. What just went down?

It’s confusing at best. It’s shocking and scary and unexpected and even unfair from where I’m sitting.

And it became David’s big hang up with God. At least for a while. How could God do something like that. Didn’t he give me his blessing to take the ark home in the first place. What kind of God sticks by those rules. How can I trust him moving forward. David must have wondered and mused and vented andstewed.

I Samuel 6:8 says this: “And David was angry because the Lord had broken out against Uzzah….And David was afraid of God that day…”

Anger and Fear.

I’ve felt them. You’ve felt them.

We face the moment where we realize God has a mind of his own, that He’s the boss, that He does whatever He chooses, not what we tell him to do, and anger and fear permeate.

Nothing throws us more in our faith walk then when God doesn’t do what we ask him to do.

How dare He not behave like we expected him to? How dare he dictate the outcome of our life? How dare he have a mind of his own?

And while our wounds are being licked and our resentment grows, the ark of God’s presence remains in someone else’s home granting them the blessings that could have been ours.

If only we would swallow our pride and move past our devastation with God.

It didn’t take long for David to figure this out. When he heard that the ark of God’s presence was bringing blessing to the household of Obed-edom, he got a wake up call and figured he’d have enough of life on his own. He’d try it again.

So he took off the layer of anger and fear, put on the coat of humility and went back for the ark, God’s way.

And God graciously forgave, and accepted David’s worship. In the very next chapter we read the most moving encounter between David and God (I Samuel 7).

A new page. A new beginning. Mercy outpoured, grace overflowing.

Are you stuck in a cycle of anger and fear with God because your life hasn’t turned out like you wanted it to, because God hasn’t delivered the goods you expected him to in your time frame?

You can spend the rest of your life pouting about it and far from God.

Or you can come back to Him on His terms.

Isn’t it time for you to move past your devastation with God?

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