Bill stunned me with his story. He told it at an informal church service when people were describing how their relationship with God began. Bill’s account was unlike anyone else’s. It dated from World War II. One evening he was huddled in a trench, knowing that at dawn his unit would go over the top and rush the enemy. Sleep was impossible. In a few hours Bill would be running into a hail of bullets. Most likely he would die, and he was not ready for that.
Bill didn’t know how to pray, but that night he made this promise to God: “If you keep me safe through tomorrow’s battle, my life will always be yours”. Next morning Bill charged forward. Bullets hissed through the air. Comrades to his right and left fell, some screaming in agony, others deadly silent. But Bill was never hit and his unit accomplished their mission. “I survived,” Bill said, “and I never forgot the bargain I made with God. I’ve tried to please God with my life all the years since.
Bill’s pre-battle prayer in the trenches is not unusual. “There are no atheists in the trenches” is a common saying. But others also make promises to God when facing terrible circumstances. They might be people about to undergo high-risk surgery, or lost on a mountain, or in a boat sinking at sea, or seeing a tornado approach. “Spare me” is the prayer of anyone fearful of dying, reaching out to the God in whom they have hardly believed before. Why do that? Perhaps because, deep down, they think of God as the ultimate power. We cannot control where the bullets fly, or the storm strikes, or how rescue might come, but God can. Hence the instinct to promise God future faithfulness in return for a miracle now.
I have nothing but heart-felt sorrow for people facing extreme danger, and fully understand why, even at the eleventh hour, they appeal to God for help. After all, one of the two thieves being crucified alongside Jesus asked Jesus for mercy when he came into his kingdom. In return Jesus promised that the thief would be with him that very day in paradise (Luke 23: 42-43). At any moment, even a last moment, it is good to reach out to God.
But that is not the same as trying to strike a bargain with God. I don’t dispute the real change that occurred in Bill. He was my mum’s cousin, so we knew how he’d lived his life. But it seems to me inappropriate to attempt to strike a bargain with God. Here’s why.
God is not someone with whom we can bargain
Mutually beneficial deals are done all the time in business and personal life. They fit under the Latin term quid pro quo which means ‘something for something’. ‘I’ll do this if you’ll do that’. ‘I’ll do the cooking if you do the washing up’. Two people, with equal standing, make an offer from which each benefit.
But we can’t bargain like that with God. We are not God’s equals. Yes, there are characteristics of God to be found in human beings. The Bible’s creation story says: “God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them” (Genesis 1:27). Theologians have always debated the meaning of humans being in the image of God – the imago dei – but being made in God’s image does not put humankind on the same level as God. He is the Lord, not us. We are not equals.
God is not someone with whom we can bargain because he is so much greater than us
Many Bible verses make that clear. Here are some of them.
God created us, and all the world: “The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth” (Isaiah 40:28).
Our human minds cannot comprehend everything about God: “Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise; his greatness no one can fathom” (Psalm 145:3).
Given our failings and limitations, it is remarkable (but true) that God cares for us: “When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them” (Psalm 8:3-4).
God existed and was at work before (what we call) time began “…the hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time” (Titus 1:2).
Many more parts of the Bible stress the ‘otherness’ of God, that God is not simply a greater and higher version of us, but a being utterly beyond comparison with frail humans.
As many do, we taught our children that God was their ‘best friend’, someone who’d always be with them and care for them. That’s fine. God as your best friend involves language and concepts that children can understand. But, as we mature, while still being confident of God’s presence and love, we need to understand that God is much more than our best pal. He is utterly bigger and superior than we are. The fact that he loves us must never mask that truth.
A God so great cannot be brought to a bargaining table.
God is not someone with whom we can bargain because God cannot be made to do anything
God is all-mighty, and therefore nothing is impossible for him. So, God could make every bullet fired by the enemy swerve and miss Bill. God could give Bill immunity from harm on the battlefield.
But just because God can do anything, we must never think he can be made to do anything. With human relationships, we can beg, bribe or bully someone into giving us what we want. By various means, we can impose our will on another person.
We can’t do that with God. We can no more make God obey us than King Canute could forbid the tide to come ashore.[1]
But surely God would want to grant a good request? Why would he deny an honest prayer for evil to be avoided and good to result?
At this point we wade into deep theological waters. Countless lengthy books have been written about what God will or will not do. All I can offer are brief personal responses why God may not grant to us what we believe to be good.
Who judges what is good? It’s a humbling and sobering truth that we’re not always right in our opinions. If that’s true at a human level, how much more true it must be when we compare our judgments with God’s judgments. God is not only omnipotent (all powerful), he is omniscient (all knowing), with wisdom far superior to ours. Isaiah wrote: “‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the Lord. ‘As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts’” (Isaiah 55:8-9).
My mother died unexpectedly, aged 55. I remember little that was said by the minister who visited us the next day, except this: “God makes no mistakes”. His words were trite, but they were not wrong.
Why would God be good to us and not to others? Why should Bill avoid injury or death in the battle while others fall around him? Are we asking God to favour us over everyone else? That’s not a valid plea we can make to the God who loves all people equally. “For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes” (Deuteronomy 10:17). Note the words I’ve put in italics. God is not biased in favour of some people and against others. God can’t be bought with promises of what we’ll give him or do for him.
What are we really asking for? Bill was asking that God prevent his enemy from harming him. So, God should prevent a German soldier from sighting his rifle on Bill and pulling the trigger? Let’s narrow the case down more. What if Bill had reached the enemy trench, and there he stands aiming his rifle at his German foe who is simultaneously aiming his rifle at Bill. Is God to allow Bill to fire while stopping his enemy squeezing his trigger?
I’ve spoken often with people who say they’d want God to prevent all harm from occurring. What would the world be like then? Someone thinking of stealing my phone would find he couldn’t lift it. Someone angry, wanting to punch me on the nose, couldn’t move his arm. Or, on an icy night, I find I can’t drive my car faster than 20 mph.
What kind of world would it be if God simply stopped all evil from happening? It seems to me that instead of being a world in which people were free to make choices, good or bad, it would be a machine-like world inhabited by robots able to act only as they had been programmed. God did not make us to be machines. He made us humans, and thus allowed joy and sorrow, happiness and pain to be part of his world. That certainly hurts, but it’s a far better world than one in which we had no freedom to act.
There will be a day when the evils of this world will end, but that day is not yet.
God is not someone with whom we can bargain because promises made in a crisis are often forgotten once the crisis is past
I’ve often heard it said that addicts don’t change until they reach rock-bottom. They won’t alter their behaviour until they feel the pain and recognise the hopelessness of their lifestyle. Thankfully, when that happens, some do change. But here’s another truth. As soon as their lives are no longer in crisis they’ll experience a strong pull back to their old ways, and, sadly, many fall again. (That’s why addicts usually need constant support, help, and encouragement to live a new life, often through support groups to whom they make themselves accountable.)
A large crisis provokes a big response. When the large crisis is gone, often the response is gone too. I wonder how many made promises to God before battles and, having survived, kept their promises for the rest of their lives? I cannot know the answer, but I fear many did not.
God is not someone with whom we need bargain because God can be trusted
On the day I surrendered control of my life to God, I never imagined my future life would be endless bliss, untroubled by pain, difficulties or regrets. My life was going to be God’s, whatever happened from that moment on.
I have never been disappointed. I’ve known stress and relaxation, joys and sorrows, success and failure, good health and bad health, and so on. But I never felt I needed any ‘bargain’ with God because I was confident of two truths.
Truth One God is a good God no matter what. The prophet Habakkuk knew that:
“Though the fig-tree does not bud
and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the sheepfold
and no cattle in the stalls,
18 yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
I will be joyful in God my Saviour” (Habakkuk 3:17-18).
Habakkuk’s list were of life essentials in his day. If any of them failed, he and his family would struggle. Yet, even if they all failed, Habakkuk knew God would still be God and his Saviour. Knowing God and trusting God like that changes how we face any hardship.
Truth two God can be trusted with our lives. In Jeremiah’s time, his nation was in trouble and his own life threatened, but Jeremiah felt safe because God’s work in his life would always be positive. “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future’” (Jeremiah 29:11). Whatever lay ahead, God would always be with him and for him.
I don’t pretend to know why, in a battle, one person lives and another dies. Nor do I think it wrong, when facing any danger, to pray for God’s help, My only concern is when someone suggests they’ll do something for God provided he does something for them. The right thing to do is surrender everything about our lives to God, and let him work out exactly what that’ll mean for our future.
[1] The King Canute story is from Henry of Huntingdon in the 12th century. Canute positioned his throne at the shore line and forbade the tide to come any nearer, which, of course, failed. It’s often supposed Canute was trying to demonstrate his power over the elements, but actually the opposite was true. He was proving to the members of his court that not even a King had power over what God alone had control, in this case, the tide.
Occasionally wise 