H. L. Mencken was a famous curmudgeon back in the day when such people were popular. In fact many newspapers had a resident curmudgeon. The San Francisco Chronicle, for example, had Herb Caen (perhaps one of the last of the breed) who wrote a column for 60 years.

Mencken once wrote the following:

Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.

I think I’m old enough to be a curmudgeon, and so it is in the spirit of that quotation that this blog post is written.

The point of my gripe (for of course curmudgeons do little else but gripe about things) is the phrase “God gives and takes away.”

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m perfectly aware that this phrase is a slight misquotation of Job 1:21. The problem, of course, is that it assumes that Job himself represents God’s view, and that assumption is hermeneutically flawed (see Job 42:3). Unfortunately song writers, especially “Contemporary Christian Music” songwriters, are not noted for their theological sophistication. Admittedly, they can perhaps be excused because neither are theologians in this day and age.

At any rate, some years ago I encountered a song called “Blessed Be Your Name”. This song, which, by the way, is unaccountably free of “the Name” itself, was popular for some years. It since has been mercifully relegated to the status of an “old hymn”, a view that I find almost incomprehensible (though admittedly a relief), but be that as it may. (This is just another way of saying that the song fell out of fashion and is seldom sung.)

Of course the song has all the felicity of phrase that most CCM songs have. One stanza was particularly annoying, like the old “fingernails scraping on a blackboard”:

Blessed be Your name
On the road marked with suffering
Though there’s pain in the offering
Blessed be Your name

After all, if you are going to use a cliche, at least get the cliche right! I leave it to the educated reader to note for himself the objectionable phrase; others may remain blissfully ignorant.

But that was not the main problem I had (and have) with this song. The chorus goes as follows:

You give and take away
You give and take away
My heart will choose to say
Lord, blessed be Your name

In other words Job’s lament, made in ignorance, has become a normative view of God! It is almost as bad as taking the phrase “He set his house in order and hanged himself” as a commandment of God. After all, Ahithophel’s counsel was “as if one consulted the word of God….” (For the whole sorry story see 2 Samuel 16 and 17). So we should have CCM songs suggesting that we go out and hang ourselves. (Maybe I should not give people ideas…. I’ve already steered perhaps too close to the wind with my “hangman’s noose necktie” sermon illustration.)

At any rate I grinned and bore it … or at least bore it … taking solace in that pearl of biblical wisdom: “This too shall pass.” (OK, I admit that phrase is not in the Bible. But it ought to be! Like that place where the Bible doesn’t say “God helps those who helps themselves” etc.)

Anyway, as I already mentioned, that song is not sung much any more. The trauma is mostly faded by now.

Until … Disaster Strikes!

There is a new song called “Hills and Valleys.”

This song checks most of the boxes in my “CCM Hall of Shame” survey.

• About “Me / I” — check
• A pro-forma “prayer” — check
• Never mentions Jesus — check
• Theologically dubious — check
• Cliche-ridden — check

Other aesthetic considerations aside, I will admit that there’s a bit of cleverness in its use of the Old Testament meme from 1 Kings 20. Though I wonder how many pick up on that (hey, this is a curmudgeonly rant, so back off…).

This song has recently bubbled to the top of that foul smell…I mean, has become popular. Now given that my church is something of a back-water, we don’t always get the latest greatest top 40 CCM songs. For which I am grateful. But it does happen from time to time, even though I try to explain … try to make it clear … try to articulate my anguish….

Again, please note that this is not a cry to resurrect “old hymns”. It’s more a cry of “get the theology right, suck…” uh… sorry about that…. Curmudgeonly rant! Curmudgeonly rant!!

Anyway all the above is mere prologue to the point of this rant:

GOD DOES NOT GIVE AND TAKE AWAY!

This is clear in the New Testament:

He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?

– Romans 8:32

Job’s idea is from a perspective on God that sees him as the only actor in all things. He does not see that “behind the scenes” there is a spiritual conflict going on. Job has an enemy (“Satan” means “the adversary”) about whom he knows nothing.

It sounds really spiritual to say “God is in control of everything. Nothing happens apart from his will.” Every indication, though, is that God wills things that do not happen. “For God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (1 Timothy 2:3). And yet at the same time we believe that there are those who will not be saved. I admit that this is a difficult idea (about which I intend to write a blog post soon) but it indicates that not everything goes according to God’s will.

What we can say is that “All things work together for those who love God…” (Romans 8:28). That doesn’t mean that God ordains painful things; rather, he uses even painful things to work his perfection in us. James, in James 1:13, tells us that God does not “tempt” us. But the Greek word is the same word translated as “trials” in 1:2. James is saying that these “trials” which we are supposed to “count as all joy” are not from God!

The main point of all this is to see God, not as the author of our pain and loss, but the redeemer of that pain and (perceived) loss. God’s sovereignty is not aimed at ordaining the difficulties we experience, but at accompanying us through them and “re-purposing” them to produce his fruit in us.

And of course he knows our pain. Hebrews 2:18 tells us: “For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.”

Again, it sounds spiritual to say, “God gives and takes away.” But this is unbiblical: something Job said in ignorance. The truth is that God is always giving us every kind of blessing and the only limitation on his giving is our own seeking after the things that ultimately are nothing.