God Wants You To...

People like to throw around the name of God a lot. But what gets me about that is how many people claim to know what God wants, and then, have no qualms using it to give advice to others. First of all, anyone who argues they know what God wants is not someone who should also be doling any sort of directive to anyone else in the first place. In itself, it raises a red flag.

Case in point: I was once in a watch party on Zoom for The Chosen during COVID. I was in the throes of dealing with over a decade of 24/7, unrelenting, crippling pain, which was what actually led me into the group. The woman who organized it was a researcher who was trying to help me chase down answers to what had become a monster of a medical mystery. That, plus I’d lost my faith and she had organized a fellowship group around the film. I thought my life was over and knew I needed to find a way to upgrade my basic belief that God was good because when something like losing the use of your legs happens and there are no answers for so long, one starts to wonder how so much pain can come from anything or anyone who is supposed to be good. It seemed like maybe she was going to be an answer to my prayers for healing on two fronts, both physically and spiritually. Or, at least I hoped.

So that was the nature of the conversation we were having after we watched an episode. Pain and its role in our lives. I shared that I didn't know how to pray anymore. I was so angry that, despite the claims, God didn’t seem to care enough about me to help me. Less pain, more answers. I would have welcomed either, but ideally, both. The pain just escalated while every clue, every lead was a dead end. I was falling apart and turned to more of a spiritual approach thinking if I could reset my heart, healing in my body might follow.

A woman, who was a new addition to the group launched into the most horrifying interpretation of God that I’d ever heard. And, in a weird way, her words were the screws that snapped my head back into place.

I can’t do it true justice here, but basically, she said that God doesn’t want or intend pain for his followers, that God is not about pain, and that because I have so much pain, I’ve been possessed by evil. She claimed she knew that Satan was who/what was causing so much pain because God wouldn't. She further went on to say that something in me was aligned with a malevolent force. Not God.

I mean, can you imagine?

Everyone on Zoom thought my computer froze, because every muscle in my face was stuck. I said, how can you possibly claim to know what God wants for me? She responded, “Because he says so in the bible.”

Oh, really. Does he?

Despite my confusion about God and faith at the time, I knew this wasn't it. Her face was sour, her eyes were dark as she was selling me something I wouldn't buy. That's when I decided, better to just stick with letting God tell me what he wants himself.

The only thing is... it's a long wait by mortal standards. And after years of begging and pleading into the silence, I had to face that what God wanted for me was not what I wanted.

hoyt richards and donna flagg