Throwing Tantrums

I threw a small...well, medium sized tantrum at God last week. It’s only in looking back that I can admit that it was a tantrum.
I’ve seen (on Tv) the little kids rolling on the floor in the supermarket aisles, screaming at their parents because they aern’t being given what they want from the shelves. I suppose, from the child’s point of view, they believe their parents are not really thinking straight and don’t see how important that snack is to them, and how much they really need it. What’s totally gone from the child’s mind is that the parent really does love them above anything else, and has probably made numerous sacrifices to provide for their needs.

The time is drawing nigh for my child to be born.
On a tangent...yesterday was mother’s day, and I was slightly disappointed for not being recognised for the mother that I am and have been for the last 8 months. I have been protecting, and feeding my child, and sacrificing my own needs and comforts so his can be met. Was it a conspiracy by the Pro-choicers to pretend my child wasn’t really a real boy yet? He’s a real boy and I’m a real mother!
Now back to the regular programming.
The bills are becoming due. I look on another list of things I need for the baby, or another quotation for a paediatrician’s fee. And my mind starts racing. I go on a rant against the doctor for charging me over a thousand U.S. just to say ‘push, push’. And I question what type of all-inclusive hotel treatment I’ll be getting at the hospital to charge me US$200 a night (let me not bother to go into all the other associated costs...). Last, but not least, I turned my ‘questions’ to God. Why does He not meet our needs if He said He would? Will He allow us to look like irresponsible parents if we can’t even provide the basics to allow the child to enter the outside world??? I was like the Psalmists, asking why the wicked were prospering and the righteous...in our position (of course I was righteous, said the Pharisee). Why was God not making things right? Why was He silent at a time like this? Did he only care about us giving Him glory, or huge Kingdom stuff? What about these hospital bills? I cried, cause I thought my God didn’t really care about me. I really thought that!

It’s good to ask questions and expose the lies in one’s heart, so that the light from Scripture can get rid of it.
The gospel is the main story throughout Scripture; God’s plan in action to save His people by sacrificing himself on our behalf. Now, it’s easy to look on that sentence as a familiar, and simple truth. But it is magnanimous!  (probably the wrong usage of the word, but the word sounds kool and huge)
That God...God, the big guy that built all the stars and stuff...that He would allow himself, as improbable as it is, to be killed. That’s one mind blowing fact. The second part though is the part I’ve tried to make sense of, but I never can. Why did He do it? Why does He love us? I can’t find an answer. Not in brainstorming and not in Scripture. Scripture does ask ‘What is man that you are mindful of him?’ Why would God bother to forgive us, and at such a high cost? We’re just dust. And He did it knowing the future, knowing after all of that we’d still throw tantrums and blame Him for all the bad and never thank Him for all the good...and pretend He didn’t do the ultimate good in dying for us!
I was sorrowful when I realised how much God had done for me already. What more demonstration did I really need to know that God loved me and cared for me? Consider the lilies of the field...
So I calmed down, got up off the supermarket floor and started thanking my God for all the ways He was more than providing and taking care of me, my Mario and my Judah. He really was. And then I considered, and continue to consider how He will provide for us.
I walk slowly, and I smile, and I try as hard as I can to not lean on my own (mis)understandings. And I thank the Lord for being doubly good to me.
VM