Will You Love Him Even If. . .?

Many of you may have seen the movie "Facing the Giants" which was a Christian movie that became a big hit recently. There are a few parallels in this movie–most of which are not very subtle. For instance, the movie is entitled "Facing the Giants" and the football team, which is known for being weak, has to play a team called the "Giants". These guys are big and fast and impossible to beat. Then the kick that wins them the championship game is performed by none other than "David" who is smaller than all of his teammates. Nevertheless, despite the very obvious message, it is still a good movie with a fairly interesting story line.

The message that spoke to me was more secondary; it spoke of surrender to God’s plan. When the wife of football coach Grant Taylor says "God, I will still love you" regardless of whether or not you provide what I'm asking you for. I know that this is a hard pill to swallow. I have said those words myself, and I didn’t get immediate results like she did. We sometimes have to really resign ourselves to the fact that God may have something better in store for us. I know we’ve all had those dreams and desires in our lives, and sometimes we blame God. We pray and ask Him and he keeps saying "No", or just seems to ignore our request. We sometimes feel indignant; as if all of our "good" service somehow entitles us to what we want. I have had to deal with this attitude in my daughter this week. She has begun to act as if she should get what she wants. She thinks if she whines enough, I will give in. What she hasn’t learned yet is that her whining translates to ungratefulness for what she already has, and then I don’t want to give her anything at all. So many times my parent-child relationship seems to mirror my relationship with God. Maybe, when I pout because I don’t get what I want, God feels annoyed that I am ungrateful for what I have. He may just want to be reassured that I will still love Him even if He chooses to give my dream to someone else. Loving God is akin to serving Him and sometimes when I feel like I’m not getting the blessings I think I deserve, my service slacks off. I have no scriptures for us tonight, only a prayer that we will all still love and serve God, even if. . . . .