Irresponsible Responsibility?
This morning on the way in for our men’s bible study, I was listening to a song called “Irresponsible” by JUDAH. and J. Monty (the song is a bit outside of my normal listening patterns, but I kind of like it…no worries if you do not!). Anyway, the chorus kind of hit me this morning – especially as tomorrow is Thanksgiving (a day where we give thanks, and are reminded to live as grateful people):
And I just wanna say that I’m grateful
For all of the ways You’ve never left me behind
Oh, how irresponsible Your love
The chorus expresses his gratitude and thanks to God, for all of the ways that He has never left us behind.
God could have let us go and be God without us, but He didn’t. He came to be God with us.
God could have abandoned us to our sin and bad choices, but He didn’t. He saved us from them.
God could have turned His back on a world gone wrong, but He didn’t. He so loved the world that He sent Jesus into it.
God could have rejected us prodigals after we rejected him (only to come home groveling to be a slave), but He didn’t. He ran to us, threw open his arms to embrace us, got out the best robe and ring and sandals, and got the fatted calf ready for a party to welcome us home.
Wow. God’s grace. So much to be thankful for. As Karl Barth, my favorite theologian, is known to have said,
“Gratitude follows grace like thunder, lightning.”
Thanksgiving is a good time to remember that, and to thunder forth with gratitude.
But what finally struck me in that chorus is that last line, “Oh, how irresponsible Your love”.
And he’s kind of right.
If someone we knew was just chasing after someone else who wanted nothing to do with them, we’d think that was irresponsible. If someone was forgiving someone else who was just repeatedly hurting them back, we’d think that was irresponsible. If someone was giving and giving and giving to someone who was just taking and taking and taking, we’d think that was irresponsible.
And yet that’s how God treats us.
Pure grace.
Unearned, unearnable.
Undeserved, undeservable.
In a way, it’s irresponsible.
But that’s where the song is only kind of right, because this is exactly who God is.
God is the God who has decided to make Himself responsible for us, no matter how irresponsible it seems.
He created us – destined us! – for life with Him. He is not going to let go of that intention. No matter what it costs Him – and it cost Him, well, everything – the life of His Son on the cross and grave. No matter how foolish it might look (1 Cor. 1:18). No matter the price he paid (1 Cor. 6:20). No matter how far we run from the flock and the Shepherd.