It occurred to me today that so many of us are rubbing the side of the bottle.

In 1999, Christina Aguilera burst onto the scene of pop music at the ripe ol’ age of nineteen with the hit, Genie in a Bottle. The song, if memory serves, was a rollicking good time, specifically focused on the mating dance of the All-American Club Goer. While the specifics of the lyrical score have escaped me over the last couple of decades, I do remember the lyrics mentioning how imperative it is, when it comes to the genie, to “rub [me] the right way”.

Oh, how true that is.

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I’ve often noticed, when it comes to the people around me, that many of them treat their faith in God as if it were a genie-in-a-bottle kind of situation. It always occurs to me, when I hear people say things or see them do things that suggest that God is just a cosmic wish-granter, that I don’t think that’s how it works at all. Perhaps, I’m wrong, and I’ve been operating under some false assumptions about whether or not God is just sitting idly by, waiting for us to ask Him for things. Somehow, though, I don’t think I am wrong about this one.

For example, if I pray to God that it doesn’t rain next Tuesday because I have a golf outing with a couple of my closest friends and I don’t want to have to cancel it, I guess that can only go a couple of different ways. Are you with me on this? 1) it doesn’t rain, or 2) it does rain.

If it does rain, I’m left with 1) my reaction to that, and 2) my interpretation of why God chose to allow rain to ruin my golf outing. Similarly, if it doesn’t rain, I am still left with 1) my reaction to that, and 2) my interpretation of why God saw fit to allow my golf outing to happen.

Regarding my reaction to the events that unfold, I would hope that I would find a way to react with a grateful attitude, regardless of whether or not God answers my prayers, because that’s what people with a real faith would hopefully do. Because God is God and we are not, his decisions as to how to answer the prayers that we issue are beyond our ability to understand. We ought to realize our proper place and just take His decisions as they come.

Maybe God brought rain, not to ruin my golf outing, but rather to feed the crops in the field next door to the golf course, so that people might be fed and a farmer might be able to earn a wage. It is the height of arrogance and ego to think that my behests are any more worthy of God’s time than anyone else’s.

As to whether or not God has nothing better to do than to meet my fickle and inconsequential requests, I’ll let you answer that. When you see people who try to rub God’s genie-bottle, expecting him to grant their wishes, and they react poorly to those wishes not being granted, it is a pretty decent indication of the nature of their heart and the absence of their faith.

I’ve heard it said that people tend to interact with God in a manner similar to the way in which they interacted with any father figures they may have had, growing up. When I was a kid, I didn’t bother my dad with requests of no consequence; I simply knew better than to inconvenience him with anything, because he was a hard-working man who was doing his best for his family. Maybe that upbringing put me in a position where I don’t ask God for a rain-free afternoon for a golf outing –> God’s got better things to worry about than my capricious pleas.

* * *

I have friends that I would do anything for, and I would hope that they would feel the same way about me. We feel this way (hopefully) about each other because of the relationships that exist between us
–> relationships that are based on sharing and love and fun times together. But, unfortunately, I also have friends that only seem to want to be my friend when I have something that they need.

Even more unfortunately, I have been that guy who only calls on certain people when I need them, but I don’t really foster the relationship with these certain people the rest of the time. I have, on more than one occasion, felt ashamed of the fact that I use people sometimes.

I don’t know if you have anyone in your life that uses you, but it always makes me much less likely to answer someone’s request of me when I know that they are just using me. In the context of a relationship with someone, I’ll usually go all out, but I not nearly as willing to help out when the relationship isn’t there.

The funny irony of this scenario is as follows: when I have a relationship with someone, and I ask them to help me out with something, they normally do whatever they can; but if they can’t, I’m much more likely to be understanding… because of the relationship. When someone tries to use me for something, and we don’t have a relationship, I could say no, but they aren’t going to be very forgiving of that… because there is no relationship.

Now, imagine how God might feel when people, lacking a relationship with Him, come at him only in those circumstances when they discover that they need something. We actually have people like this in the church that I help to lead; you only see them in church, using the prayer chain, showing up to services, trying to get their lives right with God, when they need something from him. Then, all of a sudden and out of the clear blue, they want Him for what they want Him to do for them.

Once that need is met, either by God or through some other means, those people are gone again, at least for as long as it takes for them to end up needing something else that they want to rub God’s genie-bottle for.

* * *

So, as it turns out, Christina Aguilera is really only going to “make your wish come true” if she “like[s] what you do”; I know this because I went and looked up the lyrics after all. But, since I have a lot more to say on this particular subject, I am going to press the pause button on this post, and continue it more tomorrow.