We get some odd ideas about God, don’t we?

My first pregnancy was pretty easy.  My second was not.  From early on in that pregnancy, I resented that fact.  I was so mad at God about it that I basically sat and pouted about it for nine months, refusing to look at Him.  When it came time for delivery, things got really, really bad.  It was an induced labor done way too soon, and was terrible, awful, horrible, horrendous…. You get the idea.  Worse than all the physical pain, though, was that I had this idea that because I’d spent the previous nine months in a tantrum, I had no “right” to ask God to help me through it.  So I went it alone.

It was several months after the birth before I finally dared to look at Him.  Honestly, I expected Him to be mad at me.  I expected Him to resent my tantrum, my lack of trust.  I pictured Him standing there with His arms crossed, one toe tapping impatiently, lips pursed to the side, eyebrows raised……  just waiting to chew me out as soon as I came crawling back.  I figured He’d tell me the birth experience was payback for not walking right during the pregnancy.  “It’s just as well you didn’t pray, kid.  I sure wouldn’t have been listening, not after what you pulled!”

Of course, that’s not what happened.   While I was sitting pouting, thinking I had my back to Him as He stood somewhere aways away, He was sitting right in front of me.  Instead of arms crossed, His arms were held out to me wide open, just waiting for me to fall into His lap.  His face was lit with a warm, sympathetic smile, and His eyes glowed with a loving gaze that still held a trace of a tear – and I realized that while He had been sad about my tantrum, it had never – NEVER – “offended” Him.  He had never been mad back at me.   And I saw that I had never been alone.  I had cut myself off from FEELING His presence, yes, but nothing I could do could ever cut me off from His presence.  He had still been the One carrying me through that awful time.  Had I cried out to Him during that delivery, He wouldn’t have held His love hostage to a confession of my sin; He would have immediately rushed to reassure me of His love.

I’ve been thinking about that a lot this week after reading a prayer request that left me so, so sad.  It’s not the first time that I’ve run across the sentiment, of course, but to see it in this particular situation just grieved me.  It was written by a dad requesting prayer for his little girl who is very, very ill.  The blog post basically stated that because God is holy and righteous, unless we have our act together, hands all clean and  hearts all repentant, before we pray, He won’t listen to us.  If we have unconfessed sin in our life, our prayers won’t work.  This poor, sweet father whose heart is so burdened for his little one was worried that unless those praying for her were coming to God repentantly, confessing their sins, their prayers wouldn’t really ring “loud and clear” in His ears.  So, so sad.  What a misperception of God!

Imagine the most loving parent you possibly can – one who would do (and has done) absolutely anything for his child.   Suppose the parent has told the child not to eat a cookie, but the child “sneaks” one anyway.   Before the parent has chosen to scold the child about it, or the child’s conscience has moved him to confess it, suppose the child falls from a tree and breaks his leg.  Imagine that parent listening to that child scream in pain and standing there saying, “Well, I’ll help you, of course, but FIRST there’s that matter of the cookie to take care of.”

Seems ludicrous to even think of it, yet that’s exactly how we picture God if we lay ourselves under the expectation that unless we have gotten ourselves all straightened out first, He’s going to put His fingers in His ears and sing “La la la Can’t hear you!” when we cry to Him in time of need.  What bondage to believe that we have to essentially EARN the “right” to have our Father pay attention to us.

Christ died for us while we were sinners.  God gave us His Son when we couldn’t have cared less.   He extended His grace to us while we still hated Him.  So, now that we have become His dearly beloved children, fellow heirs with His Son, indwelt by His Spirit –  NOW we think He’s going to stand in a huff at us when we trip and fall short?  NOW we think He holds it against us that we’re not perfect?  Do we really think that in a time of dire need, He is going to withhold His help until we get our act all together, or use just the right words, or whatever?  The God Who sends rain on the just and the unjust, Who instructed us to bless those who curse us, and do good to those who do us evil – now that we’re His children, He’s going to take an “I’ll only be nice to you if you do everything like you’re supposed to” position?

There is no sin which we have to take care of before He can hear our prayers because the things that we need to repent of and confess  have already been covered by the Blood of the Lamb.  God’s holiness and righteousness have been satisfied on the cross.  Our acceptance by God is not conditional on how clean our hands are or how repentant we are.  We are His children, beloved, warts and all.  NOTHING – not even our failures, our not-yet-repentant hearts, or our not-yet-confessed sins – can separate us from His love.  If we have “cookie” issues, He’ll deal with those because they aren’t good for us and distract us from the right path, but they’ll never be something He’ll hold against us and use as an excuse to withhold His love or His attention from us.

No matter what other issues we may have in our life, God will NEVER turn a deaf ear to the heart-cry of the children He gave His Son’s life for.