The God Who Doesn’t Coddle

God isn’t a helicopter parent.

Yes, he does comfort us in this life but doesn’t coddle us. He allows us to go through trials that he may perfect our faith.

As parents prepare children for adulthood, God prepares believers for heaven.

Parents that shield their children from difficulty don’t love them. It keeps them weak.

And boy are we nation of victims.  

The title of this post is partly inspired by the book “The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure.” 

That book came out in 2018. It was written by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt to explain several notable trends in college students that started in the 2010s.

The back of the book explains:

Something has been going wrong on many college campuses in the last few years. Speakers are shouted down. Students and professors say they are walking on eggshells and are afraid to speak honestly. Rates of anxiety, depression, and suicide are rising—on campus as well as nationally.

The track these trends to the popularization of what they call the three great untruths:

The Untruth of Fragility: What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Weaker

In other words, people must be protected from pain and discomfort, that includes the emotional pain and discomfort.

The Untruth of Emotional Reasoning: Always Trust Your Feelings

In other words, if you feel like something is real, it is real. So, if you feel like someone meant to hurt your feelings, they did. 

The Untruth of Us Versus Them: Life Is a Battle Between Good People and Bad People

In other words, if someone disagrees with you and/or your arguments, it’s because they are bad person and you are a good person. 

These three untruths coalesced into the sort of “snow-flake mindset” that gave us micro-aggressions, triggering, speech can be violence, canceling, safetyism, wokeism, and all the things which have become rather commonplace today.

We have become a weak and fragile people.

And this goes for the church as well. Instead of creating a holy culture, we’ve allowed the worldly culture to recreate us in its image.

We have a snowflake gospel. 

But remember, Jesus let Lazarus die. He let his sisters go through grief. 

And he said he was glad (John 11:14-15). That sounds heartless to this generation.

But it’s love. It’s godly love. It’s powerful love. It love that delivers us from any hope in ourselves or this world. It loves that teach us to stop saying “why me” and instead “Oh God, my savior!”

In John 16, Jesus says:

Behold, an hour is coming, and has already come, for you to be scattered, each to his own home, and to leave Me alone; and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me. These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.

Jesus not only rose Lazarus from the dead but he himself conquer death.

He is risen. 

Trust in your risen Lord.