God’s patient love

By Rev. Stephen.

There are moments when it would be easy to wish that God would just go zap! and rid the world of bad people, or at least let their tyres down!

When I hear about horrible things being done to people in other countries, or sometimes even our own, there are moments when it would be easy to wish that God would just snap God’s fingers and rid the world of bullies, bad people and bad things. When I think about it, of course, that means that when I don’t measure up I would get zapped at as well.

No-one is completely innocent. That is, no-one except Jesus, God’s beloved son.

When Jesus went into the desert at the beginning of his work and ministry, we’re told that it was for forty days and nights of temptation.

He was tempted with all sorts of ideas about how to make people follow him, how to make people pay attention, how to just go zap! and punish all the bad people.

But that would have made God our enemy, because none of us is innocent.

Instead of God being our enemy, Jesus shows us God’s patient love, shows us that instead of destroying us, God has become part of our life, sharing the good and the bad, the pleasure and the pain of being a human person.

Jesus has even died on the cross to show how much God is part of our life. God is not our enemy, but shares our life, is close to us in our life as we hope, with God’s help, to get it right.