Opus 2026-259: God Filters

I think we all would admit that there are large numbers of people who refuse to listen to what God is trying to tell them.  In Romans, Paul talks about how the glory of God is obvious in creation.  People, if they are listening, will see that there is something bigger than us, what we would call God.  Having said that they refused to listen to His clear statements in scripture and to the voice of the Holy Spirit, trying to guide their lives.

What I hadn’t thought about in those terms before, is that God may also have a filter where He does not listen to what we say.  I have often stated that God does not hear the prayers of the unrighteous.  I think we can document that in several places.  One place,

(Jer 7:16 KJV)  Therefore pray not thou for this people, neither lift up cry nor prayer for them, neither make intercession to me: for I will not hear thee.

And even in the book of Proverbs, it seems to say that after a lifetime of thumbing our nose of God if we then decide to get desperate and calm on Him there’s a good chance He will thumb His nose at us.

(Pro 1:26-28 KJV)  I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh; When your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you.  Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me:

So I was thinking this morning about how grateful I am for the blessings of God and, the best way I can explain it is, I am emoted my feelings towards Him.  I have to believe that when I do that He picks up on that and I like to think it brings Him pleasure.  If that’s true, and it is a big if, God would also be receptive to the pain, agony and suffering of human beings.  Which brings me to the idea of filters.  I think it’s very easy to accept the idea that God filters out the agony that people go through when they are responsible for the agony.

Consider the difference between a masculine approach and a feminine approach.  Women tend to feel your pain.  Men want you to walk it off.  I mean that as a generalization, not a stereotype.  Women tend to be more into feelings and emotions.  Men tend to be into action and strength.  One of the problems we’re having in education and society is a whole is that it’s becoming feminized.  We’re more concerned about someone’s feelings than we are about whether they got the job done and did it right.

God is love.  We know that.  Words like loving kindness and mercy are common in the Old Testament.  The first part of the definition of love is patience, and if God is love than God is patient.  There are all indications that God wants to give people blessings and the joys of life.  There are even more indications that those people keep filtering out God’s directions and insist on going their own way.  Was Israel deported?  We all know it was.  The northern Kingdom was so evil that we don’t even know what happened to them.  The southern Kingdom seem to have enough of a remnant left that God brought them back later.  The reason for all this is their continued and repetitive insistence that their way was more important than God’s way.

So I would submit for today that yes, God filters out a lot of the pain and suffering that people go through.  There’s not much He can do for us if we refuse to respond.  He can make all kinds of offers, promises, procedures, priorities but if we don’t respond, there’s little He can do to solve our problems.

I for one want to do everything I can to make it so that God will be blessed by my obedience and my attitude.

homo unius libri