New Reminders: The Credit and Blame Game
by Ardith Hoff
I have a silly game I play when someone says with glee, “Did you see? The price of gas went down.” I say, “Yes I know, I filled my car just before it changed so I am claiming credit for the drop in price.” I also say the opposite when the price goes up, I say “I just filled my car so I’m to blame.” Of course, we all know that I do not have any effect on the price of gas any more than washing my car causes it to rain.
Some of us subconsciously like to play that same game with God. We think that if God can cause good things to happen, doesn’t He also cause the bad things that happen? We like to have something or someone to blame for the things we can’t control or even some things we know we’ve brought on ourselves, by our own actions or inactions. God does not punish us with natural disasters or any other things that happen to us. Yet it feels that way, because we know we deserve punishment for some of the things we do or neglect to do.
We can’t ward off the bad things in life by being extra good, and we shouldn’t expect to be struck by lightning every time we do something bad. We might joke about it, because we know it’s a tendency of people to be concerned that God will punish us, but that is just not the case. In some churches pastors say, “God is Good!” and the congregation responds: “All the time” and the pastor reassures, “All the time, God is good”. We need to remember that this is true, and God does not waver.
There are Old Testament verses that may cause us to embrace the belief that God punishes us. For example, in II Kings 17:18 after providing a long list of Israel's sins, it says, "Therefore the Lord was very angry with Israel, and removed them from His sight; there was none left but the tribe of Judah alone." This sounds extremely harsh! It implies that God made a whole lot of people disappear off the face of the earth. He also punished the Israelites by keeping them in the desert for 40 years. Sin has always been subject to punishment, but God does treat sin differently now because He sent Jesus who paid the price for our sins. The punishment for continuous sin, without God’s forgiveness, is eternal. “For the wages of sin is death…” The good news is that the verse goes on to say, “…but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."