Psalms 103:9:  “He will not always contend; neither will he keep [his anger] forever.”

So I just get done talking about how loving and merciful God is and now we have a God who is contentious and angry.  Frankly, I don’t blame some atheists who say they cannot figure us Christians out. We talk about a loving God and then we read that He is an angry God.  We say perfect love cast out all fear and yet are supposed to be afraid of God or fear God.

It is such contradictions that cause me to seek alternative renderings to some traditionally rendered passages.  There are alternatives, we need to just be willing to step off the reservation a little and explore these alternatives and see if any fit.

We have here the word contend.  Our English definition for contend is to strive in a rivalry, to compete for a prize. Now I would have no problem if this verse said that He will always contend.  I like the idea that God is competing for us.  What is scary is that this is saying He will not always contend.  Apparently, He has His limits. There will come a time when He will just throw in the towel and say: “That’s it, I give up, the old boy is hopeless and not worth fighting for anymore.”

The Hebrew word for contend is a legal word in Hebrew, it is the word riv which is to bring a case against someone, to file a complaint.  I am willing to grant that God has good reason to bring a complaint against me.  However, consider what this complaint might be. What has God got to complain about?

He complains that we do not keep His commandments. I mean is that any skin off His back if we break a commandment?  How is he personally affected if we cheat on our income tax, miss church on Sunday or neglect to tithe.  I mean He owns the cattle on a thousand hills, do we need our meager little offerings?  Jesus said that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath – Mark 2:27.  The law was given for our benefit, not God’s. If we break His laws, it is only hurting ourselves not God.  God is hurt because like a loving parent He is hurt when His children suffer.

Just what is God’s stake in all this creation business, just what is that will cause Him to complain.  If a wife loves her husband she is going to want Him to spend time with her. She is going to want to be the most important thing in the world to Him. She is going to want Him to show her attention and love.  We hear the term the neglected wife.  This is a wife who has a husband that is not spending time with her, not showing her affection  or even spending time just letting her talk and share her heart with him. If a husband neglects his wife she is going to complain, to riv.

God’s stake in us is that He loves us. He gives us his laws to protect us and guide us to a fulfilled life.  If we break that law we suffer and God just by the fact that He loves us suffers with us. If God loves us He will desire that we love Him in return.  He will desire that we spend time with Him and share our hearts with Him.  We get saved and for the first few months we are in love, we spend every moment with God, He is the center of our world.  Then other gods come along that we desire.  We start to spend time with these other gods.  We start sharing things with these other gods that we once only shared with God.  How do you feel is you have friend that you once shared everything with and then that friend found other friends and started to do things and share things that you once shared with your friend and now this friend is not giving you that time or grudging giving you that time.  It hurts right?  You begin to complain, to riv.

God created us in His image, we have a heart like His and His heart is also easily broken.  He is also hurt when we find other gods to share our lives with and we begin to spend less and less time with Him.  My mother’s favorite story was My Heart Christ Home.   The writer likens inviting Jesus into his life like inviting Him into his home to live with him.  He shows Jesus the living room and he suggest to Jesus: “Let’s come here often, it is secluded and quiet and we can fellowship together.”   Jesus agrees but then the writer explains; “However, little by little, under pressure of many responsibilities, this time began to be shortened. Why, I’m not sure. I thought I was too busy to spend regular time with Christ…Finally, not only was the time shortened, but I began to miss days now and then…I remember one morning rushing downstairs, eager to be on my way. I passed the living room and noticed that the door was opened.”  He discovered that Jesus was in this room and he suddenly realized how he neglected Him. He said: “Master, forgive me. Have you been here all these mornings’  ‘Yes’ He said, ‘I told you I would be here every morning to meet with you…Even if you cannot keep the quiet time for your own sake, do it for mine.” We do not realize how much God longs to spend time with us. We go about our busy day and give Him very little thought.

Yet, He is by our side 24/7.  They are about to prove with the Hadron Collider in Geneva that time travel is possible.  They expect to split a particle and if their calculations are right that particle will exist in the past even before it was created.  God created time, He lives outside of time. He lives in the past, present and future. Times does not exist for Him.  So it is nothing for him to be with you every second of every day of your life and give you His undivided attention. He just moves through time and he can spend every second of my life with me and with billions of people. Iran can set off a nuclear bomb in the Middle East, but God will not budge from your side. He will just run back in time and deal with that issue after He has finished spending His time with you.

Yes, I do believe God has filed a complaint with us.  He would complain as any lover or even friend would complain when that friend starts to pull away and find other friends and other interest.  But he says that he will not always complain. I don’t believe that means He will give up on us, I believe it means that He will finally get through to us, we will begin to recognize like this writer of the story My Heart Christ Home, how we neglected God and how He has always been there waiting for us. God is a patient God, He will keep showing up at your quiet time, patiently waiting for you until one day you wake up and realize that you have been neglecting the God loves you.  He knows love takes time to really grow and He has all the time in the world to wait for it, so long as you are pursuing it, then He will eventually withdraw His complaint for He will find that love in you that He so longs to receive.