In case you aren't familiar with this particular method of blame shifting and manipulating let me briefly explain. You do or say something and get reprimanded for it. To avoid accepting personal responsibility or to make it seem as if what you did or said was God ordained you pull, i.e. use, *The God Card.* As in, "Well I prayed about it and God gave me the go-ahead, " or "God led me to a scripture that seemed to be clear indication..." or, my personal favorite, "Are you telling me that I don't hear from God? Are you the only one who hears from God?" And then the conversation is shut down because nobody is willing to argue against *The God Card*.
Back to the Bibles. In June we had a company meeting. Okay fine, it was actually a Disco themed surprise party for the bulk of employees. It was a first and it was amazingly successful. It coincided with a new shipment of Bibles that had come in and my boss thought we should lay as many hands as possible on a stack of Bibles at this party-meeting and pray over them. So we did.
Now to be fair to God we didn't tell him what to do with the Bibles or the preferred method he used along with us to get the Bibles to people. And even if we had given him our suggestions for how the Bibles would be be distributed and used he wouldn't have listened anyway. He had a plan long before we had the idea to even pray over them. So we prayed and asked him to send out his word through us.
Fast forward about two months to August. Through some stumbling it is discovered that some bot in cyber space grabbed on to our Bibles url which has the word "free" in it and put it on least 6 websites that offer samples and free products to anyone. Hey everyone loves a free thing right? Clearly. Not only did our url land on the sites for people to request a free bible, it put it on the home page under "top deals."
The good news? There are a lot of people out there who would like to read and study the word of God to get their curiosities satisfied or to get their questions answered or to discover who this God guy is.
The "bad" news? We don't have the number of Bibles we initially thought had been requested, nor do we have the means to do shipping fulfillment.
Houston, erm I mean God, we've got a problem. In 7 days we had about 13,000 requests at the rate of about 200 per hour! It's the coolest *problem* I've heard about in a very long time. The response to the *problem* was split. Some of us were super excited, some of us not so much. We all, however, love God's word but sometimes the logistics can get in the way of the excitement. There was a lot of talking and brainstorming. A LOT. I was praying a lot. A LOT. This, I knew, was an opportunity and I wasn't sure how I would respond if we dismissed it because of logistics that can be worked out.
Eventually I was in my boss' office discussing this *problem* and I reminded him, because God reminded me, about praying over those stacks of Bibles in June. His first response to me was, "That's guilt!" If you know me then you can imagine what my response back was. *grin* We also like to accuse people of using *The God Card* when we want our way to happen or we want to put people in a position of guilt so they will do what we want them to. But I wasn't using *The God Card*, God had actually used it on me! God pulled his own card when he reminded me that we prayed over those Bibles and left it up to him to distribute however he wanted.
The only one who can pull *The God Card* and get away with it is God himself. When he uses it then we can be assured it's a legit response to something we have said or done. He doesn't use it like we do, to blame shift or manipulate. He uses it because he knows the ins and outs of everything and sometimes we need the reminder that he does know. When God himself uses *The God Card* things get done and people listen, when we try to use *The God Card* people get annoyed and won't usually cooperate with such shenanigans.
Yes, shenanigans. Trying to pull *The God Card* on others is folly. I can spot the use of it a mile away and I won't give in to it. If you know me well enough you know that I rarely invoke God's name into something unless I am 100% that it is biblical and God ordained. I don't believe in *The God Card*, it gets abused and tossed about in attempts to justify bad behavior so I refuse to use *The God Card* myself, I won't do it. But when God uses his own card with me then I perk up and I listen and respond as necessary.
Oh, the Bibles? Well we did a lot of sorting of lists and discovered a lot of duplicates. So we eliminated duplicates and whittled the list down. Then we took another look at the list and decided to keep the names that had also given a reason for wanting the free Bible. That has us down to a number we can fulfill with Bibles and we are just going to eat the shipping because it's more important to us to be obedient to God's methods than it is to wiggle our way out of sending out his word due to silly logistics. *whew* I'm totally satisfied with the resolution of this *problem*, I believe we are honoring God in it. I'm also jealous because our fulfillment happens in Nashville and they are going to have a "stuffing party" and clearly I can't be in Nashville just for that! I seem to miss out on a lot of the fun. Oh well.
The next time you get the brilliant idea to use *The God Card* to blame shift or manipulate try stopping. Bring that idea to a screeching halt in your mind and instead try accepting responsibility. Quit using God as your cover for bad behavior, wrong thinking, etc. Yes, God is big and can handle it but don't make him handle it. Be a grown person and handle it yourself. Own your stuff. Remember, only God can use his own card and "get away with it." When we try we just earn ourselves a whole bunch of disrespect from other people, isolation from authentic relationships, and a neglect of ownership for ourselves. And when we live from those places we are just living a life full of shenanigans. At least that's what God says. *wink*
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