We Want God's Power... On Our Terms

The call came in around 2:30 AM. When the phone rings at that time of morning, as soon as the grogginess passes enough to realize that it's the phone, not the alarm clock or the fire alarm in a dream, even as the pastor stumbles out of the bed to grope for the phone, his heart is racing. His stomach feels like an alchemist's experiment in turning flesh to lead. It's never a good thing when someone calls much after 10 or much before 7.

In this case, the man on the other end was desperate. He was out of town, he'd been in a drunken brawl, and he had narrowly avoided getting put in jail. His drinking was wrecking his marriage and his life. I had only met him a time or two, but he had family who went to our church, and when he called them in the middle of the night, they told him that I truly wouldn't mind if he called me. His wife had been urging him to get into church and let God help him with the drinking, and he was finally ready to quit fighting the battle alone.

We set things up for him and his wife to come see me, and it became immediately apparent that the drinking wasn't the only problem. The dynamics of the relationship were unhealthy from top to bottom. We established that both of them had trusted Christ for salvation in years past, but they hadn't been in church or doing anything for the Lord in quite some time.

The man seemed serious about living for the Lord, and there was an immediate difference. He stepped away from the drinking completely, and he got into church. He started attending regularly and talking about being involved.

Then his wife put on the brakes. She'd wanted God to stop her husband from drinking. But she hadn't really wanted God to take over his life. Quite simply, she still wanted to run his life. She just wanted to use God as a tool to change something she wanted changed. She'd just signed up for a non-drunken husband, not one who wanted to go listen to God's Word and hang around with other Christians more than once a week. Why couldn't he just show up one Sunday morning a month for his God fix to keep him off the booze?

The guy was trying, he really was. But he adored his wife, and he'd been going along with her for the sake of peace and harmony for a long time. So when she wanted to go to a country music concert instead of church that time, he went along. And when she put a beer in his hand, he drank it. She decided she would rather take her chances with the alcohol than risk ceding control of her marriage and her husband's life to God.

I don't think they've been back to church since that concert. He is back to drinking, of course. The marriage is struggling, and I don't think either of them are happy.

God is not a tool. Yet so often, we think of Him that way (and by extension, Christ's body here on earth, the church). We want someone to change - but we only want them to change this specific detail. Sometimes it's ourselves we want to change. But God isn't just interested in changing details. He's in the business of transforming lives. When we're ready for that, He's able to do it. But He won't be used by anyone. He doesn't just want our cigarettes or our beer - He wants us. If we want His power in our lives, we're going to have to be willing to let Him control what He does with it.