In my historical romances, my heroes are often gentlemen. I mean, what’s a good romance without a gentleman anyway? Yet gentlemen seem to be a dying breed in our culture today. Where do you find a man who is honorable, noble, moral, chivalrous and who always does the right thing? (If you find out, let me know, please!) But how often do we think of God as a gentleman? Some people picture Him as a merciless pirate captain who’s always capturing their ship and plundering their pleasures. Others think of God as a big lovable teddy bear who loves to bless, bless, bless everyone! Both are wrong.
For years I thought of God as distant, unloving and judgmental. Now that I’m a Christian, I realize I couldn’t have been further from the truth. Yet just because He is willing to forgive us all our mistakes doesn’t mean He is a wimpy pushover either. It’s up to each one of us to discover who God really is, and the only way to do that is by spending time in His Word and with Him.
One thing I have learned is that God is, indeed, a gentleman. The dictionary’s definition of a gentleman is a civilized, educated, sensitive or well-mannered man. God never forces Himself on anybody, and the minute He senses that He is not welcome, He leaves. You may have heard this sort of thing before, but recently I’ve come to realize another aspect that really impacted me: We control how much God is involved in our lives. You don’t want God, He won’t bother you. You seek Him with all your heart, you get all of Him. You want only enough of God in your life not to cramp your style, then you get exactly that much God in your life.
This last statement scares me a bit because honestly, I wonder if there aren’t moments when I get too caught up in my own life and sort of push God off to the side.
Moments when I’m with people who aren’t Christians and I change the way I talk, the way I say things so as to exclude any mention of God.
Or the times I know God has told me I can’t get a particular thing or go to a particular place, but I do it anyway.
Or when I really want to get involved in a certain relationship and I rush headfirst into it without consulting God because I’m afraid He’ll say no.
Or when I’m just too busy to pray and read the Bible and I relegate God to Sunday mornings at church.
Or maybe I just want enough of God to get into Heaven, but living for Him day to day, well, that’s just too hard.
Whatever the reason, when we do these things, God says, “Okay. I’ll step back. I’ll withdraw My loving hand.” He gives us exactly what we want—just a small part of Him. And then we wonder why our lives gets so messed up and we get hurt or head down the wrong path and get into all sorts of trouble. And we wonder why we don’t feel the presence of God, why miracles aren’t happening in our lives and our prayers aren’t being answered.
If that’s you right now, take a moment and see if you haven’t wanted only a small part of God in your life. If so, believe me, you’ll be missing out on so much! I’m not saying I’ve perfected this yet, because I fall short many times. But I am saying that when I have sought God with all of my heart and given Him complete control, those have been the times when great things have happened in my life; sweet moments and fantastic miracles! Whatever God has done for you, He has so much more planned. Don’t push Him away, because He’s a gentleman and He will grant you your wish.
MaryLu Tyndall