Remember Your Role

Scripture Texts: Matthew 15:10-28; Psalm 83

Have you ever asked God to do something to another person because of how they treated you? While it is not a part of our humanity that we like to broadcast to others, chances are most people have wanted God to get someone else. The Psalmist is writing for this very purpose, for God to get the enemy.

Interestingly it is the writer who is speaking in the Psalm not God. There are other parts of the Bible we find God speaking through the prophets and other teachers. Here we have a human asking God to take action in a particular way. God does not answer the request, at least we do not have the answer.

This passage shows us how easy it is for us as humans to confuse our role with the role of God. It is easy for us to think God does not see what is happening and therefore we must help out by notifying God. Further, once we offer the notification we are quick to offer the plan by which God should act. In this we find revealed the primary struggle of humanity, we get confused and think we are God.

There is only one God, and one Father who is over all and through all and in all (Ephesians 4:6). Part of God being God is that it is God that knows all things and how best to be at work in all situations. If we are not careful we can even tell God how to best be at work in our spouse. As if God is not the one who created our spouse and knows our spouse's inmost being.

In marriage we must learn to help each other listen for what God has in mind, and trust that God knows better than we do. We are not in the business of telling God how to be God, and we are not in the business of telling our spouse how to live their life. What we are about is listening together and then being the chief encourager in the life of our spouse.