You call on your God
And I will call on mine
And at the end of the exercise
Tell me what you find.
From the get go
You see the problem!
Your God and my God,
At least there are two of them.
As many religious sects
Each one with its God,
Which one is the authentic God
And which one the fraud?
My God is like me
Made in my own image,
And your God is what you make
Sounds like sacrilege.
And the world looks on
In definitive confusion
Asking whose is the true God
Given our delusion.
Our prayers are a boast
Of how he responds to us;
Mostly a fake-it kind of thing,
Little to do with trust.
We shout at our God
And we continually nag
And the slightest success we get
We unashamedly brag…
Of how our God hears
But your God does not
And the resources our God has
Yours haven’t got.
A God for the Adventists
And one for Evangelicals
A God for Hindus and Muslims
And one for Israel.
A cursory glance shows
Each created their God
And any God created by a sect
Must be a colossal fraud.
Actually, it’s idolatry!
In the Bible it is so called,
Such a God cannot be appealing
But one we should appall.
Reminds me of a Mount
Known as Mount Carmel,
Elijah versus Baal’s prophets
When the latter fell.
Baal was obviously deaf
To his adherents’ screams,
Not very different sometimes
From a modern-day scene.
Some scream and shout
As though their God is deaf
And the way they keep this up
Tells me they are stressed.
Like the prophets of Baal
That became a bloody mess
Cutting themselves in desperation
As they failed the acid test.
For hours and hours
Baal’s prophets prayed
But as Elijah mockingly suggested
Maybe Baal had gone away.
After all, what was so hard
For their God to answer
And ignite their prepared sacrifice
With just a spark of fire?
You see Baal was their God
Whom they had made
But however much they prayed
It was to no avail.
From morning till evening
Not a sound from Baal,
After hours of prayer and mutilation
Things got depressingly bad.
Then it was Elijah’s turn
To pray to the Almighty God,
He had no fear he would answer
So on Him he called.
I counted 59 words
The length of Elijah’s prayer
And immediately on completion
Fire from heaven appeared.
We often pray as though
We’re trying to convince God,
There’s something He doesn’t know
Hence, on Him we call.
And it gets even better,
We remind God of His word,
We have no problem with this
Yet Baal’s prophets were absurd.
“Don’t forget, Lord,
In your Word you said such,
To ask you to keep your promise
Can’t be asking too much.”
Let’s hold God to His word
Seems to be the endeavour,
What’s wrong with putting our God
Under a little pressure?
And if He doesn’t answer
We’ll just pray and pray again
And ensure we constantly repeat
The phrase, in Jesus’ name.
And if still no answer
Just pretend that there was,
Believe you have received it-
Let faith become the hub.
Yes, made in our image
To do with as we please,
Waiting at our every beck and call
To give us our desired ease.
So, you call on your God
And I will call on mine
And at the end of this exercise
Tell me what you find.
Stewart Russell © April 15, 2024
