Oh the things that catch my eye. In Luke 11 Jesus tells a parable about going to a friend for a friend. In this parable what is needed is some bread for a friend who is hungry. So friend A goes to friend B to get bread for friend C. It is late and there is a lot of door knocking and friend B is irritated but eventully gives friend A the bread. And all this bread giving occurs not because friend B is in the mood to give bread but because friend A just won't stop knocking. And all this is a picture of our Lord who at times answers prayer because of persistence. But here is what I have been thinking about for a week. When Jesus wraps up this parable He says, "What father among you, if his son asks for a fish will instead of a fish give him a serpent; or if he asks for an egg will give him a scorpion? If you then who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?"
What to do with a God who does give snakes as a gift? While Jesus tells us that the Father will give us more of the Spirit (very nice) He does not tell us that God will not give us snakes when we ask for bread. The truth is that God does give snakes instead of bread. In Numbers 21 we find an amazing story where God sends a "gift" to the Israelites. This "gift" from God is snakes that bite their heels. You see the Isralites were tired of walking around getting nowhere and they were bored of eating food from the sky everyday. And so they started to complain. They began to say things like "We loathe this worthless food." They actually were longing for the good old days in Egypt were the food was good and different. And so "The Lord sent fiery serpents among the people and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died." There you go the Father sends snakes when the people were asking for different food. The story only gets crazier as Moses asks God to get rid of the snakes that bite and kill. God refuses to get rid of the snakes but He does have Moses make a bronze serpent and He has him put the bronze serpent on a pole so that whenever one of the people is biten by a snake they can go look at the pole and be healed. How completely weird is that?
So what is the point? Well there are many points here. But the biggest point is that we must wrap our heads around this truth. Our God is good. And so when He sends snakes He is sending a good gift. His gift of snakes turned the people back to Him. So often we want to have a God who looks like us. We want a God who heals terminal diseases and sends us a new car. (And sometimes He does that) What we don't want is a God who sends snakes. And because of this we have stopped teaching this God. We pretend He doesn't exist. And so when He does send snakes we are left in utter shock. Beyond that unbelievers are even more shocked because nobody has mentioned this God. We are so busy telling them that God loves them that we have forgotten to tell them that He loves them so much that He has a snake for them. We are not sure of this God because we don't really believe in Him because we have created a God that behaves with our definition of Good. For us good always seems nice and polite. Our definition of good fails to take into account righteousness and eternity. Our good is woefully short of His. We question God when He sends snakes. And yet the same God who sends snakes sent a snake pole. The snakes are going to keep coming until He returns. But He sent His Son and had Him put upon a pole. And when we have revelation of this act we realize the snakes are good. Because the snakes force us to the snake pole. And only through this process is there hope for eternal life, for redemption.
