The Other Shoe

“I don’t know. I guess I feel like I just keep waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

Those were the words that a friend of mine shared recently as a group of us looked back and did some reflecting on 2019. He and his family have been in a season of joy, stability, blessing. And there he was, almost feeling guilty for it. Just waiting for the moment when all the laughing, smiling, celebrating, and rejoicing caught God’s attention and He decided, “Well, we cannot have any more of this!”

I think many of us have probably been there before.
A few things go our way.
There is a month, a season, a whole year, maybe a couple years where life seems oddly…smooth.
It seems like the universe is smiling upon us.
And rather than basking in the joy of it and simply expressing out gratitude to the Lord for all of the blessing, we are looking over our shoulder.
Waiting. Watching. Worried.
At some point all this comes crashing down, right?

---

There is a starting point to this whole thing.
A starting point that is built on something false.

That starting point is this odd image of God that we have. You know the one: Old man. Wrinkles. Gray hair. Long, flowing beard. Stern looking face. It is the image of God that makes Him seem like an angry man in the sky, looking down on humanity, trying to find something to further fuel His already angry disposition.

When that is the image we have of God, it is no wonder that we start to think oddly about how He interacts with us.
If your mental picture of God is that of a cranky, curmudgeony guy then it is likely that you will naturally assume His character and behavior have to match His image.
Maybe that is part of the reason why God told us not to make images of Him.
That is beside the point.

The actual point is this:

We often live as if God is up in heaven, looking down on us, playing some kind of cosmic, morality-based game of, “Gotcha!” Like He is waiting for us to mess up somehow so He can come crashing down with a kind of one-for-one retribution. Or that He is storing a list of all our past screw-ups and failures so that just when we feel like things are going our way, He can send us the stomach flu because of that time in third grade when we kicked little Johnny on the playground. Tit-for-tat. “You did your thing, now watch me do mine!”

That line of thinking more closely resembles the ridiculous idea of karma than it does the actual character and action of God. And yet, even as Christians, we often fall victim to it. There we are in seasons of peace, waiting for that blasted shoe, certain that eventually God is coming with a lightning bolt or our own personal raincloud for a few days in order to pay us back for that white lie at work, the angry outburst with our spouse, the less-than-positive thoughts about the neighbor, or the Snickers you swiped from the grocery store when you were 11 while your mom or dad was looking the other direction.

Here is reality:

If we were paid back one-for-one every time we fell short of God’s holy and righteous standard, we would be buried under an unthinkable mountain of just and right consequence. There would be no getting out from under it. The seasons of joy, gladness, celebration, rejoicing, smiling, and laughing would not exist. They would never come. There would not be time to think about the other shoe dropping. It would constantly be falling down on us. It would permanently rest on top of us. Such is the nature, extent, and depth of our sin.

Instead, God, in His great love and unfathomable mercy, has chosen to deal with us in a different way. Do not get this confused: God absolutely cares how His people live. It matters to Him greatly, because His people are His representatives in the world. Though not dependent upon it, His reputation among those who do not know Him often rises and falls on the character and behavior of His people.

There are natural consequences built into the very functioning of the universe. We reap what we sow, meaning that our sins naturally bring back upon us the consequences of such actions. That does not mean that every bad thing that comes into our lives is a consequence of our sins or someone else’s sins. We live in a broken world. The reality of the brokenness is all around us and comes crashing into us almost constantly. But let us not confuse that for God’s punishment.

No. That punishment has already taken place. Our sin has already been dealt with. As in, the sin that exists at the core of who we are. The condition of sin has been paid for. So, too, have the acts of sinning that spring forth from the condition of sin. Both the symptoms and the disease have paid for.

“God is not waiting to drop the other shoe because it has already dropped, and it fell squarely upon Jesus. ”

All of its infinite, eternal weight crushed the Son. In His loving grace and mercy, God chose to deal with Jesus according to the demands of our sin and to deal with us according to the gifts of His righteousness.

The beauty of this means you need not look over your shoulder.
Instead, you can look to Jesus.

When the natural consequences of your sins come, look to Jesus. Remind yourself that the demands for your sin were paid by Him, and the consequences for your sins are not a double payment. Then, repent and press onward.

When life goes well and you are in a season of joy and blessing, look to Jesus. Be grateful that because of God’s grace and Jesus’ righteousness, you can live in the fullness of His blessing, praising Him and giving thanks for the goodness that He extends to you without fearing that the old, angry-God-in-the-sky is lurking around the corner somewhere.

Either way, put to rest the faulty image. Bring to mind instead the image of Jesus.

Stop waiting for the other shoe to drop and start rejoicing in the truth that it already has.