When God Finds It Hard to Be Tough

When God Finds It Hard to Be Tough
JUDGES 10:1- 11:29

In my prayers each day (well, most days, to be honest), I pray either for the nation or for the church in our nation. I do so against the background of the fact that nations grow and triumph and then decline and fall, and that churches do the same. I come from a continent where the church once flourished but is now virtually nonexistent. I live in a country where the church once flourished and is now in decline, and might be on the way to the same fate. If I were God, I could indeed be tempted to let the church fall. Yet in contexts where God has announced the intention to bring a people down, the Old Testament sets before us examples of people preaching and also praying against the odds, and of God having a change of mind about putting the people down. That shapes the way I pray for the nation and the church. I ask God to resist the temptation to decide, “That’s it” and bring us down. One of my encouragements in doing so is that God has a hard time being tough. It’s not so difficult to persuade God to let people have one more chance...