Did you hear in the news about the prisoner in a Romanian jail who is
suing God?

“God received different material valuables from me, as well as prayers
in exchange for promises of a better life. In reality, this did not
happen – I found myself in the devil’s hands,” the plaintiff said.

The convict is serving 20 years in the west Romanian city of Timisoara.
He apparently blames God for the troubles in his life and wants God brought
to account for failing to fulfill the commitments He undertook and for
taking bribes.

The plaintiff said that when he had been baptized in childhood, he
concluded a contract with God that had legal effect – God was supposed to
protect him from evil.

The plaintiff said the Romanian Orthodox Church, which, according to
him, directly represents God, should compensate him for the alleged
God-inflicted damage.

I promise – I’m not making this up! Does it surprise you? It
shouldn’t. The truth, there are a lot of people who feel the same way.
And while they may not take the absurd step of filing a lawsuit against God,
they do feel that God has let them down and hasn’t fulfilled his part of the
“bargain.”

Often, when people become Christians, they expect that God will take
away all their problems and life will be easy (and many of them expect that
because that’s what a preacher told them). I suspect that we’ve all had the
thought at some point in our lives, “How could God let that happen to me
after all that I’ve done to serve Him?”

But, living the Christian life does involve difficulties. In fact, it
may even be more difficult than life before Christ! Financial problems
don’t magically disappear, there are still health concerns, people still let
you down, and on top of everything else, there are people in this world who
don’t like Christ who will make your life miserable at times.

But there’s no way to accuse God of breach of contract. Jesus was very
clear about things up front – “In the world you will have tribulation.”
(John 16:33). The problems don’t disappear, but we are promised God’s
presence and His strength. And what God gives us far more than outweighs
what we have given Him. Let’s just hope that God doesn’t sue us for our
breach of contract!

Alan Smith