God knows what he is doing
'He will be with you and will never fail you or forsake you'
By Steve Hall
He will be with you and will never fail you or forsake you. How many ways must Moses say it, for it all comes down to one thing: God knows what he is doing.
Tuesday of the Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Deuteronomy 31:1-8
Matthew18:1-5, 10, 12-14
As with most unknowns, there has been plenty of speculation about the reason behind Satan’s initial rebellion. We know that the fundamental issue was pride, but little else. The explanation I find most intriguing is that he discovered God’s plan was for the angels to be servants of men at some point, and that was unacceptable. A close alternative was the revelation that God would become a man. Again, totally unacceptable.
Whether true or not, either possibility suggests an ancient origin to a perpetual problem: It’s hard to accept that God always knows best. So last week we heard that Miriam and Aaron both thought that it was a mistake that God should only speak to Moses or speak directly only to him. This week we hear repeatedly of the security in following the Lord’s command.
It is the LORD, your God, who will cross before you
He will destroy these nations before you.
It is Joshua who will cross before you, as the LORD promised.
The LORD will deal with them just as he dealt with . . . the kings of the Amorites whom he destroyed,
It is the LORD, your God, who marches with you.
It is the LORD who marches before you
He will be with you and will never fail you or forsake you.
How many ways must Moses say it, for it all comes down to one thing: God knows what he is doing.
The Apostles themselves didn’t escape the practice of making decisions on God’s behalf. The Gospel incident we hear proclaimed today certainly suggests one illustration of this very human problem. We know from Mark that at least some disciples had trouble with the notion that children should be brought to Jesus. “They were bringing children to him, that he might touch them; and the disciples rebuked them” (Mark 10:13). They probably had their own ideas about who was a suitable candidate for the Kingdom Jesus preached. These, of course, would be the powerful, the influential, the wealthy, the educated, the observers of the Law, and others of similar notoriety. But Jesus was quite specific: “Amen, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the Kingdom of heaven.” Whoa! I can almost hear an argument over that proclamation.
We border here on the problem of evil, but that is for another day and time.
Today’s reflection focuses more specifically on the wisdom of God’s decisions and even the ‘morality’ of those decisions. Take, for example, the instructions given to the Israelites who were about to move into the Promised Land. Among other instructions were those regarding the current residents. They were to be removed. They were not to be allowed to stay. They were to be executed if they didn’t leave on their own.
Cruel? Unnecessary? Immoral? Such observations forget a few fundamentals and question the wisdom of God. There is that underlying assumption that we could have done it better. That presumption forgets that heaven and earth and all upon the earth are God’s creation. It forgets that God is the author of life and death. It forgets that what follows this physical death is determined by God.
Judging God is a hazardous undertaking. Yet we unconsciously do so with remarkable frequency. We do so every time we do not see the events of our lives as a gift, a blessing from God.