Honestly it sounded like an email forward and I wasn't paying full attention, but it went something like this: there was a woman with cancer. She was praying to God one night and asking all kinds of questions. She asked God why He had not created a doctor to cure cancer yet. God's response to this woman and her question was that he had created a doctor with the cure to cancer, but...because of pro-choice...the baby, who would have grown to cure the terrible disease, had been aborted. She was left to suffer.
I have no idea if this is a true story. I have no idea where it came from or why it was being discussed over lunch. I'm not interested in the debate actually.
It just left me with this terrible emptiness after hearing it. I believe the stories we tell matter. The stories we tell define things. This story (to me) didn't speak to the debate at hand, but told a story of a God who quits. A God who is waiting around the corner for us to screw up so he can point out our consequences. It was, or is, told to shame us. To guilt us. To fill us with that terrible emptiness.
We need to tell better stories. Stories of the God of second and third and forth chances. The God who never stops running. The God who doesn't quit because we suck. Stories we find on page after page of scripture.
Like the God of Adam and Eve. He could have ended it there after all.
Noah spends few months on a boat, watches the world destroyed by God and rain, plants a vineyard, and then gets drunk in a tent. Give me the God who still gives us the rainbow after all of that.
Moses said "no" a few times. He tried hard to talk God out of sending him. God never told the people of Israel, "well I was gonna save you but there was this guy who told me no..." Moses went because God didn't give up.
David got another chance. So did Jonah. So did that woman at the well. And the one caught in the act. And Peter. And Paul. And me. And you as well.
I know. I know. Insert stuff about obedience and sin here. All of that matters. I know. I promise.
But can we start using more stories of a God who NEVER stops chasing His love for us because of the stupidity of us? Let's go looking for the redemption and grace of others because our own story found it first.
"When we see and accept the unacceptable in our own lives, we recognize the unacceptable in other people's lives and yet accept them anyway. Then we are truly able to help others, to lead them to grace, to help them discover transformation." Jay Bakker in Faith/Doubt
God isn't going quit all of us because you had an abortion, or you cheated, or you lied, or you stole, or you cussed.
God doesn't quit on his own story. He'll see you from a long way off and start running towards you...
That is a story worth telling.