It is no secret that I'm not a huge fan of the song "Reckless Love." That's a soap box I could stand on for hours, defining terms and breaking down how we can't allow our preference for a catchy tune to allow us to embrace what is, at best, shaky theology. I could quote Scriptures and cite evidence after evidence demonstrating that God's love is anything but reckless, and I have done so to exhaustion many times in the past. (I have refrained from doing so on this website, mainly because people's defenses of the song are largely emotional in nature, and so I would prefer to have a face-to-face conversation with them.)

It's no secret that I'm not a fan of the song, but it wasn't until my father passed away last week that I truly began to process the practical ramifications of such shaky theology. Prior to last week, my opposition to calling God "reckless" was more so a result of zeal for correct doctrine and sober worship; now, however, my opposition is from the stance of someone whose present hope and present joy is rooted firmly in the fact that God is not reckless. If I am wrong, my hope, my joy, and my peace is built on a house of cards, and my faith is in vain.

“The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.”

Isn’t it interesting how the first sin is shortly followed by the first excuse? God sees Adam, Adam sees God, God asks Adam what’s going on, Adam says he’s ashamed because he’s naked, God points out that Adam isn’t supposed to know that he’s naked and the only way for him to know that was if he had eaten from the tree he wasn’t supposed to eat from, and then Adam blames Eve, and if that wasn’t good enough, he blames God too. “Well, you see, God, ultimately this is your fault. Things were fine until the woman came along, and didn’t you make her?” Adam is trying to deflect responsibility off of himself at all costs.

But God plays along. He turns to Eve, who proceeds to blame the serpent, which you can imagine ticks Adam off a bit, since it makes a lot more sense to blame the devil for your sin than it does to blame a holy and perfect God. Nevertheless, God continues to play along, and He turns to the serpent, who knows better than to provide an excuse. God reveals that it was in fact all three of them that were to blame, and their shared sin will affect not only them, but the entire world.

How often do we do the same thing as Adam and Eve?