Today, that meant dropping a gift by to the association secretary and talking to her for a bit, catching up on emails in the office, meeting with one of my students, going to lunch with my Zambian doctor friend, her 2 year old, my Zambian trip buddies, and Kristen (my mission trip buddy). Said lunch meeting, all in all, lasted about four hours including picking up and taking home Jane and Mwame ... then there were more emails and phone calls ... including the hour + long convo with the doc who had left a few (hundred) too many messages for me in the last 24 hours ... then there were more phone calls (my phone might have 1 bar) and a few errands and now, I am sitting down, wanting to blog about where my day started, with the question of whether God changes His mind ... and I am almost too brain dead to compose sentences. And THIS is why my blog has been quiet.
But, let me give it a whirl. I've wondered this before. I can remember reading several things on whether prayer changes God's mind ... and the conclusion is generally that prayer changes us rather than really changing God. I mean, we're all familiar with the none too subtle verses that just flat out say, "God doesn't change His mind" ... case in point:
I Samuel 15:29: "He who is the Glory of Israel does not lie or change his mind; for he is not a human being, that he should change his mind.”
Psalm 110:4: "The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind ..."
But then ... what do you do with Jonah. God said he would destroy Nineveh ... and then they repented and He didn't. As a matter of fact, He MUST have done that before because that was the whole basis of Jonah not wanting to go there because he KNEW if he did and the people repented that God would not destroy them ... and hey, let's be honest, Jonah really didn't think they were worth saving. I have days when I kind of tend to agree with Jonah.
As a matter of fact, God got pretty angry with the Israelites and their calf building exploits. Really angry. And Moses seemingly talked him out of annihilating them ... "Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Israel, to whom you swore by your own self: ‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and I will give your descendants all this land I promised them, and it will be their inheritance forever.’” Then the Lord relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened." (Ex 32:13-14)
And again, in Jeremiah 18:8 God tells the prophet, "and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned."
And back to Jonah ... "When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened." (Jonah 3:10)
I love doing Bible studies that teach me new things and then I feel really smart. Priscilla explains that the word being translated in those verses as "relented" or in some versions, "repented" is "nacham" = "to be moved to pity" She goes on to say ... It "doesn't imply that He's done something wrong or made a mistake but just that He's chosen a compassionate response as a result of another's decision."
And I get it. That's who God is ... slow to anger, abounding in compassion ... loving yet just, merciful yet vengeful. I am not a bit surprised that prayer or pleading or repentance could lead Him to change His course of action. I mean, He's also omniscient ... so He kind of already knew what was gonna happen here. I guess my biggest question here is not what to do with the accounts of His "relenting" ... but what to do with the verses that claim that He does not change His mind.
Anyone got any thoughts? Cause that's about as deep as I'm going for today. I think I might make it to bed before 10 (for once) ... just barely!
No comments:
Post a Comment