From CNN
[I came across this piece the other day while doing some reading. While, on one side, it is entertaining, almost funny (I mean, come on…really?), on the other side wide it is irritating and offending, and on yet another not really very unexpected when we stop and think about it for a moment from the Scripture’s point of view.]
(CNN) – If you think voters are in cranky mood over politics, a new poll suggests that some of the dissatisfaction may run deeper.
God’s job performance has trouble measuring up to many Americans' expectations, according to a poll by Public Policy Polling, a Democratic firm based in North Carolina.
Only 52 percent of Americans approve of God’s job performance, the survey found, though just 9 percent disapprove.
[Astonishing, while at the same time, not really all that surprising isn’t it? The vast majority of “Christian America “disapproves” of the way that God is handling His job! He is not living up to THEIR expectations.
Actually, I suspect that this is a far more widespread dissatisfaction in the Christian world than merely 52 percent in many ways. I suspect that most believers struggle with being content with God’s “managing” of their lives and thus the world if the truth were known. Oh, we go along with it and settle for what He does, but many times it is through clenched teeth a ‘rather’ in our minds other than what God has done.
We forget that God is both a God Who knows the beginning from the end and a good, a morally good God. We forget that He has chosen us, from before the foundation of the world to be a part of His foundation and that this choice is root in His own good pleasure and not in our own performance. We forget that this choice and redemption is rooted and secured by the work, the FINISHED work of the Lord Jesus, accomplished in the past and already presented before God in heaven where Christ now sits, exalted and glorified at the right hand of that august Majesty on high.
All of this means that there is no question, no question whatsoever, that God is managing our lives (or the world at large) in a good (morally and ethically, as well as, well, administratively I guess we could say) fashion. His nature demands and provides for it to be so.]
The polling question that prompted this curious response was,
"If God exists, do you approve or disapprove of its performance?"
“When asked to evaluate God on some of the issues it is responsible for, voters give God its best rating on creating the universe, 71-5," the polling report said. "They also approve of its handling of the animal kingdom 56-11, and even its handling of natural disasters 50-13."
[Isn’t all this cute! Well, no actually. Notice, above that this is of course, a function of Democratic politics, though it is most assuredly not limited to Democratic thought. In the first poll number cited above, 52% approved while “only 9% disapproved. That leaves 39% “on the fence” so to speak, if I do my numbers right. Of course, I suspect that some of this had to do with the way that the question was asked, but really now, how is that we, in this country, in this world have to the place where we think that we get to offer God a “grade” at all in the first place? How is it that we think we even have the tools to do so?
Was this not where Job got himself in trouble and ended up being rebuked by God, shortly and in no uncertain terms, for speaking to things, when it is all said and done, he knew nothing about? Oh surely, he had some passing acquaintance on the experiential end of the matter, but not on the end of the matter that made any real difference in the final evaluation of the how’s and whys of the mechanism of things; and God, for the one time all of the Scripture, deigns to tell a man that truth - it isn’t up to him! For the rest of us - it is God’s world and not ours - we don’t get to evaluate Him.
Dino Grandoni cited the poll in a blog for the Atlantic Wire:
“On the bright side for the Almighty's re-election chances, God is still more popular than House Speaker John Boehner and both Republicans and Democrats in Congress, all of whom polled at 33 percent in the same poll.
(snip)
Believers or not, it seems ridiculous for the public to categorically grade God like this, until you realize that it's pollsters who asked the questions in the first place”
[The arrogance of men is astounding; and in the day and age, grows and will keep growing until one of two things happens. Either God is gracious and sends revival and men fall on their faces in repentance and cry out for mercy and we see that repentance and redemption take hold all across our land (and hopefully all across the world!); or, our Lord at last returns to put an end to this wretched and tiresome trek towards final judgment. To be honest, I am not sure which of the two I desire more. I can honestly say that I would (like our Lord I think) love to see revival - for I don’t want to see any perish, no matter how arrogant or foolish they are. But then I look around and I see this world so wicked and so very, very bent on doing just and only what it pleases…]
Public Policy Polling used automated telephone interviews to survey 928 American voters from July 15 to 17. The voters were represented by a mix of liberal, moderate and conservative voters. The poll's margin of error was +/-3.2%.
[LoL - I have news for them…their margin of error is LOT higher than! Sadly, they are just to foolish and filled with self to realize it.]
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