Why does God put up with humans?

I was privileged to mentor Austin.  I remember when he was born.  In his teen years, I was his pastor. In his parent’s living room, I had the honor of walking him into the family of Christ-followers.  His father, Barry, and I were in a Bible study group for a while.  I see his mother, Kelly, occasionally around town.  However, I had no contact with Austin while he was completing college. Then his family started attending the same church I attend, and Austin began to meet his parents at the church.  We reconnected.  Through the summer of 2018, we met weekly to study Scripture and just talk.  During that summer he surrendered his heart to the love of his life.

As the sun was scooting toward the horizon, I sat outside waiting to witness his marriage in what was once one of his grandfather’s pastures.  It was a most wonderful setting filled with the grand visual reminders of the history of his family line who filled the chairs as those who know him best.

Thankfully, the temperature of the late August evening was near that of a church auditorium.  A large cloud with a shape that closely mimicked a human hand shaded our eyes from the glare of the sun behind them, and bathed us all in wonderful refracted lighting.  It was a perfect evening for an outdoor wedding.

Before the wedding party started to enter our alfresco sanctuary, I set letting the moment happen around me.  It occurred to me I was resting, really resting.  While I have never met a folding chair that quite fits my body shape, including the one I was perched upon at that moment, I was deeply resting.

So much of life is tainted by rude, unthinking, self-driven people.  From fellow centrist drivers to insensitive and almost invisible passers-by, we traverse from one appointed place to another.  From national armies and rogue armies in foreign lands, heavily armed angry neighbors’ shooting up schools, churches, and just crowds, earth does not seem to be a very healthy or happy place to live.

There is a constant grinding of grit in my soul when I watch television.  The bad news is really bad.  Important people are always bickering.  There is an almost indictable sense that I am being trained to accept and believe a particular point of view in every program.  Television programing was once a means of selling products, entertainment, and informing viewers but has become a very subtle manipulation of deep moral truth.

The question cannot be avoided, “Why does God put up with humanity?”  There is enough to make a grown man cry and a long term believer wonder, no doubt, but wonder.  How does God do it, keep on giving sunlight and rain to people who take Him for granted and use Him for their personal privilege?

Resting in that folding chair in that setting with those who had gathered for that magnificent event, the answer came to me; Our Creator Father really enjoys weddings between His children.  He also really likes to watch us anticipate the birth of a child, take our first step, say our first word, lose our first tooth, and all the other things that come to a human as they pursue the maximum of His creative power in us.

I see Him delighting in us as we begin to struggle with good and evil, and start to lean into His revelation of compassion, mercy, and grace. The short of it is God keeps humanity going because He unconditionally enjoys us.  Perhaps He does not enjoy watching what we do but that we are the expression of His identity; His image.  I can rest in that!

Photo – Fred Baldwin.  Taken with my cell phone.