Did you hear in the news about the prisoner in a Romanian jail who is suing God?

“God received different material valuables from me, as well as prayers in exchange for promises of a better life. In reality, this did not happen – I found myself in the devil’s hands,” the plaintiff said.

The convict is serving 20 years in the west Romanian city of Timisoara. He apparently blames God for the troubles in his life and wants God brought to account for failing to fulfill the commitments He undertook and for taking bribes.

The plaintiff said that when he had been baptized in childhood, he concluded a contract with God that had legal effect – God was supposed to protect him from evil.

The plaintiff said the Romanian Orthodox Church, which, according to him, directly represents God, should compensate him for the alleged God-inflicted damage.

I promise – I’m not making this up! Does it surprise you? It shouldn’t. The truth, there are a lot of people who feel the same way.

And while they may not take the absurd step of filing a lawsuit against God, they do feel that God has let them down and hasn’t fulfilled his part of the “bargain.”

Often, when people become Christians, they expect that God will take away all their problems and life will be easy (and many of them expect that because that’s what a preacher told them). I suspect that we’ve all had the thought at some point in our lives, “How could God let that happen to me after all that I’ve done to serve Him?”

But, living the Christian life does involve difficulties. In fact, it may even be more difficult than life before Christ! Financial problems don’t magically disappear, there are still health concerns, people still let you down, and on top of everything else, there are people in this world who don’t like Christ who will make your life miserable at times.

But there’s no way to accuse God of breach of contract. Jesus was very clear about things up front – “In the world you will have tribulation.” (John 16:33). The problems don’t disappear, but we are promised God’s presence and His strength. And what God gives us far more than outweighs what we have given Him. Let’s just hope that God doesn’t sue us for our breach of contract!

Alan Smith alansmith.servant@gmail.com