What If You Were God?

If you were God would you do anything different? To even think about being God is a frightening thought in and of itself that may make even considering a question such as this something difficult to do. However I was reflecting on this question about whether if I were God if I would do anything different. How about you? Complete the sentence: If I were God I would…

For example, if you were God would you change anything about yourself? Is there anything about your lot in life that you would change? Would you change anything about financial or relationship struggles you have or have had? How about your physical appearance or your health? Would you change anything about these things? If you were God would you have allowed the events of September 11th? Would you eliminate hunger? How about war and fighting? Would that come to an end? How about hunger and poverty? What about untimely or tragic death? If you were God would you take away pain and sorrow?

The point is that not many of us could honestly say that there aren’t some things that we would do differently or change if we were God. In fact for many of us, there is quite a long list of things that we would do differently. We would change our lot in life. We would do something about the plight of many. We would intervene and stop evil. We rationalize that it would only be logical. And based on our way of reasoning few of us could argue with most changes because they make sense.

However therein lies the problem that we all have, at least to some degree. We view God and how He should operate through our eyes. We tend to think that He’s a lot like us, except maybe older and stronger. Our thinking is that His will is pretty much the same as ours, except His is smarter and He has a longer view. Many times our problem is that we read our human style and how we would do things into God’s character. As a result when life throws a curve at us we tend to see God as someone who should do things differently. Sometimes things such as these shatter our faith. We doubt. We question. Why doesn’t He do things differently? We wonder where God is and if He really is working.

Charles Swindoll in his book, “The Mystery Of God’s Will” writes, “The over arching, big picture will of God is not centered in the petty details of life that we worry over. When He’s tried us, and we have responded in obedience (even though we don’t understand why), we will come forth as gold. ‘But I still don’t understand,’ you say. ‘I don’t understand why he’s doing all this.’ Guess what? That’s perfectly fine with Him. It’s all part of the gold making. Does it make the journey easy? It does not. Does it make it simple? It does not. Does it make everything that happens logical? We know that answer. Then what does knowing this do for you and me? It makes it bearable, especially when we call to mind that God makes no mistakes.”

If or whenever I get this right, what a testament that is to learning to live loved. Why is that? Simply because whenever our trust in Abba Father remains true, even when what I define as good doesn't happen, it's a witness that I acknowledge His love regardless of circumstances.