No Third Option

“Because they regard not the works of the LORD, nor the operation of his hands, he shall destroy them, and not build them up.” (Ps 28:5 AV)

There is a prevailing idea that is completely false.  The idea of neutrality with God does not exist.  In other words, if I leave Him alone, He will leave me alone.  I meet people like this all the time.  They believe that accountability to God is contingent on belief in Him.  If the sinner does not believe in the existence of God, then he is not accountable to Him.  Only those who have faith in God, so they think, are required to live according to His law.  According to our passage, this is a false and dangerous idea.  God is not neutral.  Although He has created us with the ability of self-determination, He has not abdicated consequences to us.  We do not get the right to determine our destiny without any regard to the wishes of our Creator and expect Him to ignore us.  That will never happen.  To press the point, note that there are only two divine responses.  There is either destruction or building up.  There is no in-between.

All through High School, I took art classes.  It was my release from all the stress of the high school experience.  For those forty-five minutes every other day, I was with students who respected me and did not care who I was or what I was.  It was my safe space, so to speak.  This freedom from stress allowed self-expression to blossom.  To this day, almost fifty years later, I can remember some projects we worked on.  We worked with various materials and in various ways.  I can remember a wire sculpture I made of a horse and rider in the middle of a steeplechase.  I can remember a clay sculpture only because I had to go to the hospital when I impaled a toll into my thumb.  There were many drawings.  A few watercolors.  The list goes on an on.  But one thing about artwork is that a true artist will come to the end of his work and know that perfection is impossible.  He or she will strive for it.  But because we are human, we know that there is always room for improvement.  Along the way, we start over a time or two.  The clay doesn’t cooperate, so we reduce it to lump and rework it to our masterpiece.  The scale or perception of the painting is a bit off, so we paint over it.  I’ve worn out an eraser or two.  In other words, we destroy the work of our hands so that we can improve on it.  At some point, we have to live with the fact that our work is the best we can do.  Although not perfect, it is the best that our hands and minds can produce.  This is what a creator of art does.

God is no different.  He creates for His glory and pleasure.  I know that mankind, as self-determined individuals, doesn’t like that fact.  But it is the truth, nonetheless.  We did not get here on our own, and we are not the captain of our circumstances.  As Creator, God has the right to do with us as He pleases.  Besides, if we're created, then we were created for a purpose.  The Creator determines what that purpose is.  If the Creator determines we are no longer serving His purposes, then He has every right to destroy.  We started this entry with an observation.  That observation was the absence of a neutral option or position for those refusing the works of our Creator.  There simply isn’t one.  As was once famously said, ignorance is not an option.  Neutrality does not exist.  We are either for God or against God.  We either believe He exists and thus submit, or we refuse to believe and rebel.  There are no other choices.  Therefore, the Creator will either destroy or build up.  But He will not let us alone.