Don't Make Me Come Down There!

Have you seen those billboards that read:

"Don't make me come down there!"
--God

I'm sure that a lot has been written about the various theological interpretations that could be read into this quote. (In fact, Google says there have been about 173,000 different things to say about those billboards.)

Today, I received a relevant old testament reference, Numbers 12. In this chapter, Miriam and Aaron show some jealousy or resentment of Moses for the nature of his relationship with God. In the end of that story, God comes down to scold Miriam and Aaron for their behavior and puts Miriam in "time out" for 7 days.

I don't personally take well to threatening language. I would much prefer if God just started counting, like we do with our kids: "That's one. That's two. That's three... take five." Then we sing the time-out song to make sure we aren't showing too much anger: "Uh oh, little bit of time out, coming up now. That's soooo sad." I can picture James Earl Jones as the voice of God singing that song.

Again, I don't personally like threatening language, but if I think about it with the way and reasons for disciplining my children, I can appreciate the message. We aren't always our best. We make mistakes. I guess that we can be put in timeout, with love, too.