zap!

i first met god in the walmart parking lot in athens, texas. i was five or six years old, and was spending a few weeks visiting my grandparents. while in the store, my grandmother had offered to buy me a toy. not wanting to squander the offer on just any toy, i was taking my time looking over everything and weighing my options. characteristically patient, my grandmother eventually grew weary of my selective shopping and told me we were leaving - without a toy.

this made me cry, of course, and i began to create quite the scene. frustrated and embarrassed, my grandmother issued a quick swat to my hind quarters. i tried to hold back my tears as we exited the store, my feelings of shame prompting me to mumble "i wish i could just die." my grandmother wheeled around, caught me by the arm and said with striking conviction "don't you ever wish that, andy. god might strike you down right here in this parking lot with a bolt of lightning."

i'm probably not the only person that has spent their lives in fear of what god might do to them. growing up in the church i was practially raised on the old testament stories of god's wrath falling upon the sinful: getting kicked out of the garden of eden, the tower of babel, sodom and gomorrah, lot's wife, the flood, being exiled in egypt, spending forty years wandering in the desert - and that's just in the first two books! it's easy to teach these stories to children; the characters are easily divided between good and evil, and the plots are thick with drama. love, death, guilt. they translate directly to how we want our chlidren to conduct themselves, and usually the story even adds a little incentive. do this, don't do that...or else!

but when the story really gets good, when the climax is reached, our ability to teach seems to vanish. i mean, we're good about painting jesus as the "good guy" of the story. that part is easy; we know the end of the story, and everyone likes a winner. really, it's message that jesus brings that seems to be the difficult part. forgiveness for all, love thy neighbor, acceptance, the last shall be first - these themes are more difficult to illustrate with a flannelgraph than animals walking two-by-two.

i wonder how many of us have grown up embracing justice and vengence rather than forgiveness and mercy? how often do we find reasons to reject others instead of accepting them? how motivated are we to help, and how motivated are we to hurt? and even worse, how often have we perpetuated this faulty teaching to our own children, our own friends, our own world?