Brutal Love Never Fails?

Hey Everyone! 

Some of you may be wondering why I named my blog “Brutal Love Never Fails.” Really, it’s quite simple...I read a book about it, was impacted by it, and learned that God’s brutal love never fails. The name of the book is called Sifted, written by Rick Lawrence. Lawrence goes through, and dissects, Luke 22:31-32 which says,

“Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again,  strengthen your brothers.”

When you actually stop to think about this verse, you may come to the realization that it's pretty weird. If Jesus was basically God, then why didn’t He just stop Satan? Our thought is that if Satan demands, Jesus should rebuke him and be our biggest advocate. Lawrence tells us of the meaning of Peter’s sifting, and the book really answers a lot of questions about suffering in general. I would recommend this book to anyone and everyone.

Lawrence goes on to say that some of us may describe God as brutal because of something that has happened to us. However, that doesn’t mean that is an accurate description of who God is. That may be an accurate description of an experience we’ve had with Him, but that description is not true in whole. Let me explain a little more...If my little brother wants to go outside without a sweatshirt and my mom says no because it’s too cold, he will usually call her mean (this happens all too often...). Even tho, in that moment, my brother sees her as mean because of that particular experience he had with her, that is not true about my mom. She is not mean. I know that, and my brother knows that. BUT it was true to my brother in that moment.

I think sometimes we like to look at God to see how loving and compassionate He is. But we never want to look past those characteristics or think our suffering came from God. 

Ever. 

So what happens when we read the Old Testament. Do we ignore the fact that God indirectly allowed Job to suffer to prove Satan wrong, when He simply could have told Satan not to touch Job, his family, or his possessions?

Do we ignore the fact that God allowed His people (the Israelites) to kill so many others? Or do we take that and look at why? Why would God allow that? Why would God allow so many non-believers to be murdered by His people? Maybe this was some kind of preparation for the coming of Jesus.

If we look at Rahab’s story, we can see that news about the God of Israel was spreading fast. Rahab helped the Israelite spies to escape out of the town they were looking to take over. The story of Rahab also shows us that anyone could belong to the God of Israel. We see this with Ruth as well, which teaches us that God was not closed off to just the Israelites. This is very important to take note of. All these cities heard about what the God of Israel was doing for the Israelites and how he parted the Red Sea. Yet, they still fought them.  But seeing that all these places heard about God and what He did should be comforting. He wasn’t doing this for nothing. There was a plan.

Most of us know how the story plays out...
The land God promised the Israelites was finally given to them. And then the Messiah came many many years later. The Messiah didn’t only benefit the people of that time. He came for us as well. I believe the Messiah (aka Jesus Christ) was the result of all the brutality that was shown by God in the Old Testament. Jesus Christ is true love. God had a plan in all His brutality. His plan was to show His love for us.

I know what you’re thinking...that hardly makes sense.

I know.

It’s crazy.

I want to believe there was an easier way too, and there may have been. BUT I think God likes challenges. What if God chose the Israelites as His people because He knew they’d be the toughest, the hardest to satisfy, and the the biggest complainers? Maybe He knew we’d learn the most from their mistakes. If God chose a loyal, patient group of people with low standards, we probably wouldn’t be able to learn very much from them at all. God chose the Israelites for a reason.

I hope this is coming together a little. I hope some of you can see this in your life. But there is a chance some of you may never see the purpose of God’s brutality in your life, just like the Israelites who escaped from Egypt. They didn’t get to see God’s love for them played out thru Jesus here on earth. And that sucks. But, we still need to place our faith in who God is. Because one day, God will show us the purpose for His brutality if we let Him.

 

 

One last thing...

(This is my favorite example from the book!)

Sometimes when we feel we’ve lost control of our lives, we will try anything to get that control back. We’ll try everything to first save ourselves only to realize that we’re not able to cut as deeply as we need to.

Jesus will dig deeper than we ever could.  

We need to give ourselves over to God who is brutal enough to get the job done. He will use terrifying things we would never try. He will bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, and endure all things for us. 

His brutal love will never fail us.

I love you all. 
I hope you are able to put these concepts together to start to see and think about who God is and how He works.
(I also hope this made you want to read the book Sifted, by Rick Lawrence!)









-Erika

"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose." -Romans 8:28