Why?

BECAUSE I SAID SO – With or without the exclamation point, in a loud or soft voice, either way it does not tend to make us more cooperative. We want reasons. We want logic. We want it explained to us. We want some input in the decision making process. At least we want our wants and needs taken into consideration.



However, what do we do when the one making the decision has the right and the power to make it? We have all worked for bosses, even if we were out looking for a new job as quickly as we could, who managed with that mindset. Technically, the boss does have the right to make that call. After all, it is his/her business. They are the ones who put up the capital to get it up and going. It’s there name on the signature line of our paycheck. But, still. . .


We don’t take it much better when those words come from God, either. We want to know why it has to be that way. We want to understand the thought process God went through in the process of coming to this particular conclusion, at least that’s what Job wanted. We seldom get it though, do we?

In Yahweh’s call of the prophet Jeremiah he says, “You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you.” It doesn’t seem that God is particularly interested in Jeremiah’s input on the situation. God doesn’t seem interested in whether this fits in with the rest of Jeremiah’s schedule. When God comes to us with a task to be done it immediately moves to the top of the To-Do-List! OK, at least it should. God has already decided the destination, the audience, and the message. This is not the office of prophet by committee.

Is this to say that God does not care about our feelings? No, absolutely not. It does remind us that God’s top priority is faithfulness.

Matthew 21 has Jesus telling a story about a father coming to his two sons and asking each of them to go work in the vineyard. The first was rude and disrespectful, telling him flat out, “I WILL NOT!” Later this one went. The second said all the right words but never lifted a finger. Jesus follows the parable by asking the question, “Which one of these sons did the will of the father?” It’s all about follow through.


Later in Jeremiah Yahweh says, “I am watching to see that my word is fulfilled.” The phrase has two meanings. First, God is not like a harried parent who rattles off a long list of tasks and then forgets what was dished out and to whom. No, He remembers the who, what, when, and where of what He told you to do, and He will watch to see how you perform. Literally, Thank God for grace!


But, secondly, God’s watching is more than an overseer’s task to make sure the work is done. Yahweh’s oversight actually enables the task to be performed! So, before you get quite so anxious about God looking over your shoulder, remember that it is this watching that makes the work possible at all.

Pastor Craig