Don't Try God

My daily work commute time is occupied with radio station surfing, singing out loud to CDs and wondering why the police speed traps never catch the guy who just went by me at 80mph.  Also, as I get closer to the city, I am greeted with the sight of various billboards sprinkled along the roadside.  Most are just advertisements for casinos, upcoming concerts, local grocery stores and personal injury attorneys.  This is my routine, and it’s fairly routine.  However, during a recent commute to work I saw a billboard that caught my eye, it read, “TRY GOD” and was sponsored by the local Catholic radio station.  This giant billboard had a black background with big bold white lettering, “TRY GOD.  Think of the “Got Milk” ads.  It looked like one of those, but without the paid celebrity sporting a milk-stach.  Just two simple words, TRY GOD.  Bold and simple and really to the point.  It sure beat all the other billboards advertising strip clubs or deals on local hotels.  TRY GOD. 

Sign Ahead

Over the next several weeks I passed this sign along with the others without much of a second thought.  Then one day it hit me, TRY GOD…maybe that’s not the best message to be put out there.  Don’t get me wrong, I totally understand what they were trying to do, to get people thinking about God.  But the problem I have with this billboard concept is the “try” part.  To “try” means to attempt to do something, and if unsuccessful, attempt to do something else.  Remember, “if at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try again.”  To suggest a person is to “Try God” is to imply that God is one possible solution to whatever problem the reader of the billboard is facing.  Basically saying that if you are a person struggling with something, Try God out as a possible solution.  Go ahead, give Him a try.  If this is truly the message they are conveying, then they could have very well have put up a billboard right after the Try God one that said, “Try Therapy” and then the next billboard saying “Try a Vacation” and the next could say “Try Mom’s Home cooking.”

There are two problems with trying out God

THE FIRST issue is that by just trying God you are not giving 100% of yourself to Him.  You are testing to see if He’s a good fit.  To see if He can help.  This marginalizes God and brings the Creator of all things, the Alpha and Omega, the Father God of all creation and everything that ever was and ever will be…down to the same level as a self-help book.  Try Him out and see if you get what you are looking for?  Not a chance, God wants 100% of you because He created 100% of you.  Nowhere in the bible does God ask to be tried out as a possible solution.  The Old Testament is peppered with stories about how kings and even entire cities of people tried out something other than God and failed (often punished).  It’s only when they committed themselves to God at 100% did they receive God’s blessing.  This isn’t to say that they still didn’t have pain and struggles, but they went through those pain and struggles with God.  He was with them, as their strength, their guide, their Father, their provider, their creator and their savior.  There was/is no try, there was/is only God.

THE SECOND issue with trying out God is that if a person’s questions/problems/issues/concerns are not met in the timeframe that they’d expect and in a way they’d would like, the person could likely walk away from God to find something else to try.  This would be just like if a person tried out a new diet plan and then didn’t lose any weight.  In this scenario, God is the diet plan.  After failing, the possibility of them returning and trying out the diet plan again would be very low.  They might instead say, “that diet plan didn’t work out for me, I’m going to try something else.”  Plus, to make matters worse, they might also tell their story to someone else who because of the comments by this person, may not try that same diet (God) for themselves. 

“Hey, I’m struggling with anger issue, I was thinking about trying out this God-thing.”

“Yeah, I tried God when my spouse died suddenly, but I didn’t get what I needed, don’t bother.”

“Ok thanks…got any self-help books I can try?”   

By bringing God down to a level than man can manage, His sovereignty is removed and He is put into the same group as any man-made solution.  If a person doesn’t give 100% to God, they hold something back, and it’s what they hold back that will ultimately contribute to their failure.  In the instance where God is at that same level as a man-made solution, God can also be discarded..  Back to the “if at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try again” idea, if there is no success the first time a person may try, try God again or he may try, try something else.  Either way, by setting our own standards for results from God, the risk of walking away from Him when those man-established standards aren’t met is significant.

I can appreciate the attempt to get the commuting population to find their way into a church or turn on a religious radio station by using a clever marketing campaign, but I think this “try” idea is weak at best, dangerous at worst.  Perhaps the sign should have read “KNOW GOD” which would challenge the viewer to seek Him out to meet, know, learn about, obey, love, thank, rely on, call out to and worship.  Those are the things God wants from us, not a trial period during a difficult point in our lives.    

Know God.