Jeremiah 25

I know, I know. The title of this blog: duh! Nothing new or earth-shattering here. One of the basics of knowing God is recognizing that He is the parent and we are His children. But how often do we stop to really flesh out all the applications and implications of that? If we know God is a parent, should it surprise us when He acts like one?

Did you notice this subtle shift of phrasing in today’s chapter? “And though the Lord has sent all his servants the prophets to you again and again, you have not listened or paid any attention. They said, ‘Turn now, each of you, from your evil ways and your evil practices, and you can stay in the land the Lord gave to you and your ancestors for ever and ever. Do not follow other gods to serve and worship them; do not arouse my anger with what your hands have made. Then I will not harm you.’ But you did not listen to me, declares the Lord, and you have aroused my anger with what your hands have made, and you have brought harm to yourselves.” (vs 4-7)

When our first daughter was almost a year old and began to walk, she was suddenly getting into anything and everything! Of course, that necessitated a whole new level of training on our part, and whenever we let her “roam free” around the house, we were constantly having to educate her about what she could and could not touch.

One of the things we were most adamant that she not touch was electrical outlets. Duh. So we set up very strict boundaries about her exploration around those particular objects. I would be right there, watching like a hawk, and if she reached for an outlet, I would say in a stern (albeit calm and loving) voice, “Caroline, NO TOUCH.” (I love the way that simple shift in my tone of voice got her full attention! I referred to that as my “Mount Sinai” voice. Ha ha.)

Now, if I recall correctly, most of the time when this occurred, she would drop her arm and wander away. But every now and then, she would hesitate. She would look at me and then back at the socket, and I could almost hear her thinking, What will happen if I do touch it? And sometimes, I would answer her unvoiced question by saying, “Caroline, Mommy will thump” (referring to giving her an immediate thump on her hand if she went ahead and touched the socket).

In other words, what I was saying to her was, “Caroline, if you touch the electrical outlet, I will harm you.” Or, to turn it around into the example of today’s chapter, “Caroline, if you refrain from touching the electrical outlet, then I will not harm you.”

Of course, in the verses I quoted above, it’s interesting to note that while God warned Israel that He would harm them if they didn’t change their ways, what actually ended up happening when they didn’t change their ways was that they brought harm to themselves. That’s precisely what would have happened if Caroline never heeded my warnings. I could threaten to thump her and spank her and do all manner of things to her if she didn’t stop messing with the electrical outlets, but if she was utterly determined to one day stick a fork in one of them, she would have brought awful (and probably irreparable) harm to herself.

If you are a parent yourself, you know that the things we do for our children—even threatening them with pain and discomfort—in order to protect them are good things. Would anyone come to my house and claim that I am an unloving parent because I didn’t allow my children to do certain things? Or because I disciplined them if they did do those things? Of course not! Everyone knows that the discipline is not punitive, but beneficial. I never threatened either of my children with pain and discomfort to hurt them, but—just the opposite!—to keep them from getting hurt.

Isn’t that what God is doing all over the Bible? He has a bunch of spiritual toddlers—out-of-control, evil-minded, greedy, self-centered toddlers—who need loads of training. Yet we expect to peek in the Bible and see God treating His children as mature adults. Because we know and love “gentle Jesus meek and mild,” we get a bit flustered when we look back at the Old Testament and hear God say things like, “Don’t you make Me come down there, or I’ll give you something to cry about!” But when we encounter God in this mode, I would suggest that it’s because He is dealing with people who are apt to willy-nilly stick forks in electrical outlets (spiritually speaking).

God is a parent, and that means He’ll do anything He can to protect you, even when it means protecting you from yourself! I’m not saying that we should like that, anymore than my children liked being told “no” or getting their hands thumped. But when will we be able to read the Bible (especially the Old Testament) with the spiritual maturity that understands what God is dealing with and appreciates Him for doing it even when it made Him look bad?