Why God Isn't Like the Boyfriend or Girlfriend Who Cheated on You

As we drove up to the house, my stomach turned. I wanted to throw up.

My girlfriend had told me two days earlier that she'd kissed another dude, but I couldn't believe it. I just couldn't.

So, I thought I'd get my best friend to drive me over to where I thought she was on the following Friday night, and see for myself.

Surely enough, there was her car. And his car.

Furious, I slammed the window as I looked at her holding his hand. I'm not gonna let this happen. I'm not gonna let this happen.

We drove off because she saw me through the window, and I wouldn't doubt it if she could see the fire in my eyes.

I was hysterical. I couldn't believe it. The girl I'd sacrificed so much for, given so much, even traded my friends for, was now with another guy. My heart sank lower and lower as the night passed. I felt like I had lost the only thing important in life.

But I wasn't gonna let it happen.

So, I increased the gifts. I increased the phone calls. I increased the emails and letters.

I'm not gonna let it happen. I'm not gonna let it happen.

Eventually, she had to tell me to let go because I was trying to win over an affection that wasn't there. I was trying to appease a girl who couldn't possibly be appeased by me. She'd found another love.

When this reality set in, I didn't want to ever love again. Or be loved.

I imagine most of us have had this sort of experience before.

Doesn't it trip up our psyche? Our emotions? Our spirituality?

We give and give and give, staying pretty much blind to the others' faults, and when it comes down to it, we can't win for losing. There's another lover on the horizon.

As human beings, we can't help but connect our human experiences, even project them, onto what it would look like to be in a relationship with God.

How often we find ourselves in the same dark place, trying to win back the affection of our Lover, because we're pretty sure that God's seeing someone else right now.

Or maybe someone told us a long time ago that there were certain things we had to do in order to get God to love us. Or maybe the whole concept of being in relationship with God turns us around, because every time we think of relationship, we think of things like breakups and cheating and broken hearts.

And so the best we can do is treat God as if God's a girlfriend or boyfriend who we've decided doesn't love us as much as we love God.

And so we either give and give and give

or

completely give up on the whole God thing because we just can't win for losing.

But what if God isn't like an unappeasable girlfriend? What if God isn't like a boyfriend who's found another woman?

What if God wasn't like the girl who kept nagging her boyfriend to send her more letters, knowing in her heart that she had found another?

Do we really want a God who's constantly on the lookout for someone better than us?

How easy it is to apply to our spiritual problems the same broken strategies we apply to our human relationship problems.

The truth is, we can't make God love us anymore than we can make another human being love us.

The difference is, human beings are screwed up. On good days, we can hardly love 30% of the time.

But the author of Hebrews tells us that we are all purified from sin by the offering that Jesus made of his own body once and for all.

This God is uniquely different than the psychological images that we project onto God based off our human relationship failures. This God is tired of all the letter writing, wooing, and contests for affection.

According to the author, this God doesn't see as as potential mates, as competitors in the spiritual realm of The Bachelor.

This God sees us through the blood of a sacrifice that was made once and for all - for all of us.

Can we believe this?

Can we let our human relationships be as they are and at the same time believe in a God who isn't like the person we're trying to woo or conjure up feelings in?

If we can't, then we'll probably either go mad trying to appease a God who can't be appeased or give up altogether.

But, I've been told all my life that I have to please God.

And whose concept was that? Was it yours?

There was a simplicity in soaking in what somebody else said about God wasn't there? Didn't it just come in as if there were nothing standing in the way?

With the same ease and simplicity, we have the ability to believe differently, to believe in a God who's not waiting on us to appease or woo or satisfy.

So, how do we do that?

Get a piece of paper and write out what your current beliefs are. Then, ask yourself, "Where'd this idea come from?" If it came from someone else, and you like it, then keep it. If it came from someone or some place else, and you don't like it, replace it with what you do like.

After doing this for awhile, your eyes will be opened to how far you've come on the backs of someone else's belief systems.

And the fun part is, you can change your concept.

Today's Focus: Are there any deep, hidden beliefs in my psyche that tell me God is like a lover who constantly needs my attention or else someone else will win her over? Are there any beliefs in my psyche that tell me God is nagging or unapproachable or demanding or loves with conditions?