Yo mama and God

A few years back, "yo mama" jokes were very popular.  You had to be careful to make sure you told them in a clear, joking way so people didn't think you were actually talking about their mom.

There was and still is a sense that if you talk about someone's mom or other relative or friend, that you're inviting trouble.  With some, if you insult or talk about their mom, they are considered fighting words.

I remember witnessing a few interactions where a person felt their mom/relative was being talked about and they said they were ready to commit violence against the person who did the talking.

Why?  Because you don't talk about someone's mom.  Why not?  Because in their world, mom is untouchable.  If you speak poorly of their mom, you're speaking against all they hold near and dear.

Even if you told something that was true about someone's mom, if it made them look bad, you could be inviting a great deal of conflict.

There's something deep about some relationships and connections - even if it makes no sense and you can't explain why, you're not allowed to question or speak in a way that makes certain people look bad.

Those people - often "yo mama" - considered sacred, untouchable, or just off limits.  You learn early on to protect them because in doing so, you're also protecting yourself and your worldview.

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It's the same way with God a lot of the times.  If you speak about God in certain ways, some people are ready to take your head off because they believe they are protecting themselves and their worldview.

It's what often destroys the ability to have conversations with non-believers.  

It could be that someone who didn't grow up in a church or religious environment has genuine questions, but their questions and personal observations imply God is less than the religious person's view of God, and the religious person can get quite defensive.  Maybe be offensive back at the person's honest question.

Granted, there are plenty of people who do attack and try to stir up people who are "of faith" or religious by the way they approach an interaction.  Some people are trying to be a jerk about it.  But not all.

Some honest "seekers" would genuinely like to ask questions about God, but because they've witnessed anyone who asked questions get attacked or piled on to by religious people with "pat answers", they just keep quiet.  

A lot of the times, I've seen religious people who have a few "pat answers" but really don't have any additional information to "back up" their view of God, get really angry and take the outsider's questions as a personal attack.

And it's back to the "yo mama" joke dynamic.  That's really sad.  There's a lot of room for discussion and no reason why that kind of discussion has to be so full of tension.

God is a pretty big God and can handle it when people discuss their questions, doubts, and concerns. 

It's those of us who are believers that sometimes are afraid that we won't or don't have a good answer to hard questions and it's going to make *us* look bad and so we label questions as being asked from wrong motives or just as evil.

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Imagine someone demanding that you pay them a LOT of money because they heard from a mutual acquaintance that you owed it to them. 

Keep in mind, you never agreed to pay them the money, it's just something your mutual, but misguided, acquaintance told them, but they are convinced you own them and they're very upset with you about it.

That's the same kind of dynamic that exists with God at times.  

There are people who are interested in God and have questions about him.  They've heard that he's good and that "a good God" would do certain things for them.

And when he doesn't do those things - provide health, healing, money, protection from harm, a good life, etc - they want to know why God doesn't do those things.

That's when believers can get frustrated because they know that, at times, they've believed those same things themselves and maybe still want to believe, but they also don't have personal evidence that God does those kinds of things consistently and regularly.

The reactions to those hard questions can be a lot of things: 

1) React strongly to the person asking the questions and say they just don't have faith.

2) Condemn the person asking questions as evil or strongly misguided.

3) Avoid the person/people asking questions all together and shut down any similar connection with people "like that" and just stick to "yes" people who will agree with you.

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In the middle of all that kind of dynamic, we don't leave a lot of room for God to work or speak.

Maybe we should do that more - let God speak, let God work.

We're sometimes more interested in winning an argument and defending our worldview/selves, that we can end up putting God and ourselves on the hook for things that were never promised by God to start with.

Maybe God didn't promise some things that we've heard he did.

Maybe God is more interested in some things that we're not interested in and, if we let him speak, he'd tell us about himself and what he's doing and what he'd like for us to be interested in.

That can be a tough call, a tough thing to do - to let God speak, that is.  

Why?  Because we want him to say things in a way and in a certain time frame so that we don't look bad.

It kind of reminds me of the story of Job from scripture.

God showed up and answered a lot of questions - in his time, focused on what he wanted Job and company to know, and that was it.

That's probably one of the hardest things to do - to let God be God.

A lot of times we want to speak a reality into existence and project our idea about God on to the universe.

And that's a fine and good thing to do - it's how we learn and grow.  

We "try out" ideas about God and we keep those that work and toss out those that don't work.

The hard thing is not to settle too hard on some ideas and expect others to join us where we've settled.

It can be frustrating when we want others to be where we are in our beliefs and, because they are not us and haven't walked our path, they are not there and maybe never will be.

And that's okay.

God knows us all and actively works at reaching us, when we're ready.

You can trust and depend on him...and you can ask him plainly, "What can I trust you for?  What can I depend on you for?" and he will let you know.

Peace and goodwill.