I don’t like to be wrong.
I really don’t like it all. I could go all Dr. Seuss now, y’all, and say that I don’t like it here, don’t like there, don’t like it anywhere.
But this is not one of my humorous pieces.
Because this (not wanting to be wrong–which we can all agree is known as “pride”) causes me no end of consternation in my relationship with my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
You see, in my “horizontal” (i.e. with other humans) relationships I have input, I have some say over how things go. I get to help define the terms, work out the rules of engagement.
But with God, it’s different. It really is His way, or the highway. Oh, make no mistake, like Fleetwood Mac, He’ll tell me “‘you can go your own way,’ but I’ll be waiting when you call that a day, fall on your face.”
And that’s what I wrestle with: His inscrutability. He’s never wrong. He defines the terms, never argues back. (Incidentally, have you tried lately to argue with the “eternal, immortal, invisible only wise God?” Unlike a spouse, friend, coworker, child, whatever, there is never an audible reply. He refuses to play by my rules).
God sets the terms, defines the rules of engagement, and has even authored a playbook. Oh, He listens as I bleat at Him, sure–like a shepherd hears the bleating of the sheep in his care. But the thing about sheep?
Sheep are monumentally stupid.
And I don’t like being stupid–or wrong.
I come at Him in my “sheepish” pride, my arrogance, and I want to define the terms, set the rules for our relationship.
Thus my single greatest sin–aside from (metaphorically) hammering in the nails myself–is simultaneously giving lip service to His lordship, and wanting a Burger King: having it my way.
How about you? What do you struggle with as you walk with God? Do you want a “Burger King?”