Do you think of God as proactive or reactive? What I mean is, do you believe God actively disciplines, transforms, and even causes changes to people, which is proactive, or do you believe God waits until we make a move and then reacts to either punish us or reward us, which is reactive?

Certainly, there are cases of both in the Bible, but my suspicion is that most of us think of God as mostly reactive. But since He is a sovereign God who is in charge, I believe it is more correct to think of God as proactive. One reason for it is this: If we are born morally neutral, then God would wait to see which way we would lean either to discipline or reward (reactive). But we are born morally depraved. Therefore, God only disciplines and then rewards to change us (proactive).

Case in point: Jer. 32:30-41. It starts out, “The people of Israel and Judah have done nothing but evil in my sight from their youth.” (v. 30) But it ends with, “I will rejoice in doing them good and will assuredly plant them in this land with all my heart and soul.” (v. 41). What happened in between? Your assumption is that the people must have shaped up. They must have repented of their sins and asked Him for forgiveness and therefore, God decided to be good to them again? But that’s NOT what happened!!! People’s repentance is NOT mentioned anywhere in that passage. Rather, what happens is God actively disciplines them for their sins and after a certain time has passed, He suddenly decides to be good to them.

And then He says this: “As I have brought all this great calamity on this people, so I will give them all the prosperity I have promised them.” (v. 42).

What do we make of this? God will bring disaster on us for our own good. He will discipline us for our sins for our own good. But it is in order to bring prosperity eventually. It is to mortify sin in us and bring blessings to us eventually. And this leads to repentance. So, even our repentance is not caused by us. It is caused by God, often through disasters and calamity, so that He can bless us.

If you don’t like God, you won’t like what is written here. God seems to be too much in control. He seems to be violating our own freedom of choice. But if you like God, that won’t bother you at all. As a matter of fact, you will be eternally grateful that God is that way because otherwise, you would’ve never known true freedom that transcends choices.

PH