WHAT KIND OF GOD IS HE?
This is the question we wonder about when life keeps pressing us in ways we do not understand.
How can these things continue happening in my life?
How can one thing happen after another?
How can I pray and still hurt?
How can I try to do what is right and still find myself here?
How can God love me and allow my life to feel like this?
And eventually the question underneath all of those questions begins to surface:
Is God punishing me?
Maybe God has had enough.
Maybe I have disappointed Him too many times.
Maybe what is happening in my life is telling me something about how God now feels about me.
But before you answer that question from your pain, you need to ask another one.
What kind of God is He?
Because if the covenant depends finally on God, then everything depends on that question.
It is not enough to say that God made a promise.
The deeper question is whether the One who made the promise can still be trusted when the people receiving it fail.
That is where Exodus 34 becomes so important.
Israel has already failed badly.
The golden calf has been made.
The people have turned from the God who brought them out of Egypt.
The covenant relationship has been violated almost as soon as it has been established.
If there were ever a moment for God to say,
You have finally pushed Me too far,
this would be it.
Instead, this is the moment when God declares who He is.
Exodus 34:6 says:
“The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness.”
That timing matters.
God does not say this when Israel is standing before Him with a perfect record.
He says it after the golden calf.
After failure.
After betrayal.
After the people have done something that should make us ask exactly the question frightened Christians still ask:
What is God going to become toward them now?
And God answers by declaring His own character.
Compassionate.
Gracious.
Slow to anger.
Abounding in hesed.
Abounding in emet.
Hesed is covenant loyalty.
Steadfast love.
The faithfulness of One who remains committed to what He has sworn.
Emet is firmness.
Reliability.
Trustworthiness.
The kind of faithfulness that holds under weight.
Together they answer the question:
What kind of God is holding the covenant?
Not a God whose love slowly drains away every time we fail.
Not a God who begins faithful but becomes someone else after enough disappointment.
Not a God whose commitment depends on whether we have performed well enough to keep Him committed.
God's faithfulness is not produced by our faithfulness.
We do not create His hesed by behaving well.
We do not keep Him trustworthy by remaining worthy.
He was already who He is before we succeeded.
And He remains who He is when we fail.
That does not mean failure has no consequences.
It does not mean God ignores what destroys us.
It does not mean rebellion does not matter.
It means something more fundamental:
Our failure does not turn God into the opposite of Himself.
That matters when life is hurting.
Because pain makes us interpret God through what is happening to us.
The relationship fails.
The body does not heal.
The money gets tighter.
The prayer remains unanswered.
Another disappointment comes before you have recovered from the last one.
And you begin to think:
This must mean something about God.
Maybe He is angry.
Maybe He is punishing me.
Maybe He has finally withdrawn His love.
But Exodus 34 tells you not to define God's character by the pressure of your present circumstances.
The golden calf did not make God stop being compassionate.
Israel's failure did not make God stop being gracious.
Their rebellion did not make God cease being slow to anger.
Their unfaithfulness did not empty God of hesed.
So why would your worst season have the authority to redefine Him?
That does not answer every question about why something painful happened.
It does not tell you why this particular loss came.
It does not explain why the prayer was not answered the way you wanted.
But it tells you something you desperately need to know before you try to interpret any of those things.
It tells you who God is while they are happening.
And that is where the question “Is God punishing me?” has to begin.
Not with the pain.
Not with the chaos.
Not with your fear.
Not even with your failure.
Begin with God.
What kind of God is He?
Exodus 34 answers:
Compassionate.
Gracious.
Slow to anger.
Abounding in steadfast love.
Abounding in faithfulness.
So when life presses you and you cannot understand why these things keep happening, do not let the pain answer a question God has already answered about Himself.
Human failure may expose what is in us.
Suffering may expose how frightened we are.
Consequences may expose what our choices have produced.
But none of those things gets to rewrite the character of God.
Human failure reveals the depth of God's covenant character.
It does not transform His character into its opposite.