Are You on God’s Cash or Credit System?
When I was younger and would become upset when people who did wrong got away with it—or worse, got promoted or rewarded for it—-my mom told me about God’s accounting system. It’s sometimes a comfort to me to think on this concept, as it explains why I seem never to be able to get away with even a tiny wrongdoing, while others around me flagrantly disobey laws (of God or of man) and prosper.
First off, you have to understand and accept that God is constantly seeking the best interest of His children, whether they are following Him at the moment or not. So He allows little temptations to come into our lives to help us strengthen our abilities to fight off temptation. (Just as we impose little stresses on our muscles by way of weight-training in order to make our muscles cumulatively stronger.)
God is interested in making each of us into the best person we can be, but He is constrained by His desire to give us free will. We can choose to obey or to disobey. And here’s where the accounting system comes in.
Those who have committed themselves to God’s care and correction are placed on the “cash-only” system. If they willingly and knowingly transgress what they know to be right, God allows the consequences to happen immediately. That way, we don’t get complacent in doing wrong, thinking “well, I didn’t get caught that time” or “well, I did that and nothing bad happened” and therefore thinking that we can probably get away with it again. This actually has several effects: we don’t become complacent in wrongdoing, we are faced with consequences immediately—making course correction quicker and less problematic, we are reinforced in our understanding that doing something wrong “just this once” is still wrongdoing, and we are spared the additional pain of having to “face the music” for a pile of offenses somewhere later in life.
On the other hand, those who have rejected God’s overtures and have told Him, in one way or another, to leave them the heck alone are placed on the credit system. God will allow their offenses to compile, just as our credit card balances accrue. One day, that debt will come due. It is far more terrifying to approach an angry or disappointed parent (and that is, after all, what God is, or wants to be, to us—a loving father) when you have a whole bunch of things that you did wrong, than it is to face him over one misdeed. And wrongdoing tends to compound if not checked, just like the interest charges on your credit card bill. If you don’t pay it off when it comes due, it multiplies itself.
Now I can hear the skeptics saying, “Why would a loving God let anyone pile up offenses? Isn’t that cruel?” Well, I think it’s rather like a parent who has a child who is inordinately fond of sweets. After multiple warnings that too many sweets will make the child sick, the parent is likely to stand back and say “Have it your way, then,” and allow the child to gorge itself. Then, when the little glutton makes himself ill, the parent says “This is why I keep warning you about sweets. I’m sorry you are sick; here is some medicine to make you feel better.” And then the parent administers whatever medicine is needed to make the child well. The medicine is nasty, but it also provides relief.
Or take the child who insists on trying to touch the stove. As long as Mummy is in the room, she stops the child’s questing hand and says, “No, don’t touch. That’s hot. It will hurt you.” But as soon as Mummy is out of sight or distracted, that little hand is out there exploring again. Ineveitably, there will come a moment when the stove is hot and the child, touching it, is burned. Mummy then takes the child on her lap and cuddles it and applies medicine (or cold water—most unpleasant but also most effective in treating the burn) to the burn, and reminds the child that it has been warned about the stove, and that this is why the warnings were given.
That’s what we humans are like. God has said, “Don’t do that; it will hurt you,” and we refuse to accept His warnings. We want to do it; it seems that it would be nice to do it, and by jove! we are going to ruddy well do as we like. We tell God to get out of the way and let us do what we wish. Then when we get hurt, we holler at God, “Help me! Why did You let this happen to me?” Which is very much like the child demanding to know why its mother didn’t stop it touching the stove by tying it into the high chair.
As C.S. Lewis says, “There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, ‘All right, then, have it your way.’ ” The first set are on a cash-only basis, and the second set are running up a credit account.