'Don't Confuse God's Patience with His Permission'

This simple sentence from the Adventist church captures so much of the problem I have with it. A problem that goes beyond dogma, rules, and interpretive choices. A problem with its god. Adventism doesn’t have a monopoly on this god. Many of you have met him too. My worldview of origin just perfected him, and it shows in this statement. This god reminds me of something.

On it’s surface, this statement is trying to remind you that you are a sinner and to emphasize urgency you should act with to become a former sinner. You are running out of time to get ready.

But look closer. God’s patience here is not for you to live life to the fullest. Not for you to heal and develop relationship. Not to reflect the image of itself it made in you. This god is simply withholding your just punishment.

We are not here to experience consciousness. We are not here to appreciate this life, love, and art. We have a job to do each day. This life is viewed literally as our probation, and if you are in violation, a probationary period can be revoked at any moment.

His patience is mercy, and He’s giving you time to repent, not more time to keep pushing your luck.

At the corporate level, this speaks of Adventism’s unique “Investigative Judgement” when probation will close for the whole world all at once. However, the way this rhetoric gets used, its never meant corporately. It’s about the individual. We each have our own personal relationship. We each have our own record to repent of. We are each given a certain period of time. Every breath is evidence you’ve been spared. Every sunrise is a new ultimatum.

“I could have been dead, sleeping in my grave.”

“Oh, but He woke me up this morning, and He started me on my way.”

You are alive because God hasn’t decided to cut you off yet. Unless you repent in the right way, conform to the right system, and fall in line, God’s patience will run out.

In this framing your death is His choice, not a tragic effect of a broken world. Each morning you wake is not a gift but a warning with the sword of Damocles swaying above you and fires of hell below.

God’s patience turns into surveillance and His mercy into monitoring. But of course, this is what the heavenly record books are for, right?

While scripture claims:

"The Lord your God is in your midst, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you. in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing” (Zeph. 3:17)

In contrast, this god, has suffered long enough. He taps His feet and checks His watch to track your progress, and shakes His head at your lack of progress. Your stubbornness. Your pet sins.

We cannot see the warden, but He sees everything we do. We are pushing our luck that He has not yet lowered the hammer.

“Every day God is deciding your eternal destiny.” (Review and Herald, August 30, 1892) ¹

“No man is safe a day or even an hour with prayer.” (The Great Controversy, p. 530) ²

And we deserve the hammer. We deserve the task. We deserve it for who we are in our DNA. We were made expressly for this work. The best creatures like us could hope for is this probation. Our best use of this time is to keep our heads down and hope we ‘repent’ correctly. Obviously, it was not resting in Christ. It is not our beliefs. Our repentance can only be demonstrated through our complete deference and obedience. Anything less is ingratitude punishable by death.

Ah yes! That’s what He reminds me of.

A plantation owner.

I may have worked very hard to feed, cloth and provide myself with shelter, but only because of what the Master has given me.

I am alive and well only because the Master has spared me the noose.

I deserve the whip, I deserve the grave, but in His loving kindness, it won’t come…today.

That is mercy right? Not being harmed by a loving God?

It may not feel loving or fair and just to us down here, but it is not for beings like us to understand.

His ways are higher.

But the days He will put up with my shiftless behavior are numbered. I am not permitted to live, love, and laugh, it is by my Master’s mercy alone. That mercy is running out.