Whatever

We have house guests at the moment who I love, but who are distracting! :) So I give thanks to my friend Jane, who shared this reflection with me and gave permission to pass it on!

 

By Jane Archer
 
I have been reflecting on some notes that I took at an Easter Sunday morning service. I do not know who preached this message entitled, “Whatever God” but he spoke of many characters in the Bible who basically said … “Whatever God.”

Here are a few:

• Abraham who was willing to sacrifice Isaac (Genesis 22);
• Jeremiah saying, “The Lord sent me …” (Jeremiah 26:12);
• Isaiah’s calling, “Then (Isaiah) heard the voice of the Lord saying … Go and tell this people …” (Isaiah 6:8-9);
• Esther who said, “And if I perish, I perish.” (Esther 4:16).
• He then went on to speak of Hosea who was willing to marry a prostitute,
• Paul who was willing to suffer,
• Jesus who endured the cross,
• John and the Isle of Patmos,
• Shadrack, Meshach, and Abednego,
• Job and last, but not least,
• Joseph, who said, “You (his brothers) intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.” (Genesis 50:20).

I had never realized how many people in the Bible had put their life on the line for God or how many times God tested people to this limit. It was one of those moments when I said to myself, “I had never connected the dots before.” I realized again that the Bible needs to be taken as a “whole” in order to see the full picture.

 

At the time of writing this I am reading I Love God’s Sense of Humor by Stan Toler and one sentence jumped off the page, “Society has a one-word expression for the feeling of futility (they) experience: ‘Whatever’”(112).

Often I will hear people say, “Whatever” and as I think about it, it is with a sense of futility. Perhaps the effect of Doris Day’s song, “Whatever Will Be Will Be” has an underlining dimension to it that we do not realize as Christians?