Seems like He keeps giving despite His own personal pain.
I'm in the part of the story now where Saul is being tormented by an evil spirit sent by God... and David has been given the Spirit of God... and watching the story unfold with these dynamics is puzzling... the most I can seem to glean at this point is that God is telling a story and He has something to reveal about who He is (despite our responses to Him) and so He orchestrates things with fallen people to achieve His purposes....
Makes me wonder what He is up to... what is it He is trying to say about Himself and what is my role in His ongoing tale?
I wonder how I might live to bring Him less pain... or better yet some joy?
That story has always puzzled me too. Why God would give them the king they want? And I wonder, too, about what seems a certain, I don't know, fickleness in God to send the Saul he chose an evil spirit and give David his Spirit. I'm not entirely sure I LIKE the God I see revealed in these stories, though I'll grant I like God's people in the story even less. Yet the material God has to work with...fallen, flawed, failing, flailing, yet still loved, always loved, and with something to offer this world in which they live.
ReplyDeleteMaybe "God who doesn't change His mind [who] does seem to have regrets" lets us suffer our choices, regrets the pain that unfolds even from His decisions about us, even if He doesn't change his mind about them. I don't know. But somehow I think there's compassion involved. And it seems to me too that when people are permitted to fail and sometimes to fall apart, a space opens up for Grace to step in, and when Grace steps in we fallen ones can in turn become more compassionate and generous with those around us.
Maybe. Or maybe not :)