Isaiah 29:16: Role Reversal

You turn things upside down,as if the potter were thought to be like the clay!
Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, “You did not make me”?
Can the pot say to the potter, “You know nothing”? - Isaiah 29:16

The modern era is characterized by men and women who would like to regard God as their peer rather than as their parent. In doing so, it gives them the right to bring every decision of God into question. "Who is God," they might ask, "that he should have the right to decide what is best for me? I don't like the choices being made on my behalf. Give me the data and, for better or worse, let me work out my own choices to the best of my ability and I will bear the consequences."

The raised fist of defiance, or the sly, passive, quietly doing my own thing--each is a radical departure from how people have traditionally viewed the divine. We have walled off heaven, or considered it irrelevant. As a result, our imagination has become stunted and our view of God has been diminished so much that we can only view Him as a smarter, more powerful, more benign but ultimately still limited version of ourselves. As C.S. Lewis said in God in the Dock:

"The ancient man approached God (or even the gods) as the accused person approaches his judge. For the modern man, the roles are quite reversed. He is the judge: God is in the dock. He is quite a kindly judge; if God should have a reasonable defense for being the god who permits war, poverty, and disease, he is ready to listen to it. The trial may even end in God’s acquittal. But the important thing is that man is on the bench and God is in the dock."

The truth is, God does not owe me a defense or an apology. It may upset me that he uses his power so willfully, without consulting me. I may accuse Him of violating the very moral strictures that He places on me. In the end, I must confess that the moral calculus of it all is too complex for me to be God. I must acknowledge I can't put together a reasonable defense of my own behavior that would satisfy even my conscience. I must trust that God knows what in the heck He is doing and that He truly had my best in mind when he sent Jesus and called me to follow.