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Not A Tame Lion


Your love, Lord, reaches to the heavens,
    your faithfulness to the skies.
Your righteousness is like the highest mountains,
    your justice like the great deep.
    You, Lord, preserve both people and animals.
 How priceless is your unfailing love, O God! 
                                                                      (Psalm 36:5-7)

          I know people who think of God’s love as being the love of a doting grandfather looking down on – well, at least everything that they approve – with an indulgent, somewhat simpering smile. “My god would never…” they insist. When I’ve pointed out the majesty and fierceness of God’s love, they’ve shrugged it off as “the good, the bad, and the ugly” of God’s love.
          Hear that bubbling sound? That’s my blood boiling. God’s love, bad? God’s love, ugly? Perhaps to someone who doesn’t know it, or who thinks they have a right to stand in judgment of God and His love when it doesn’t meet their standards. God’s love reaches to the heavens. It can’t be found in your nice little boxes. As C.S. Lewis wrote so many times in his Narnia books. “Aslan is not a tame lion,” and God is not a tame deity. He is omnipotent, omniscient, all-wise, wild and free, and His love is not watered-down puree. 
          I’ve heard other people say that they pray to saints because they don’t want to bother God with this or that little thing. He’s busy. He has enough to do without being bothered about something just because it matters to us. It sounds humble, but God is omnipotent, omniscient, and all-wise. How is it possible to even claim to love God while holding him in such contempt?
          Heavenly Father, shake us from our delusions about You and Your love. Waken us from our vain dreams about a god who suits our preferences, indulges our whims, and simpers at our sin.  

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