I’ve noticed something weird that sometimes happens on Stuff Christians Like. When I write about the goodness of God, some of the comments are quick to point out just the opposite. I’m not sure if it’s an over reaction to prosperity ministry or just our struggle to believe in a loving God, but there’s times when we Christians can’t say fast enough how difficult a life with Christ is. We react to words of his love for us with as many verses about the challenge of faith that we can find. It’s a strange way to react to grace and probably stems from the fact that it’s too good to be true.

Grace can’t be this easy. Grace can’t be this available. Grace can’t be this accessible.

We shouldn’t get a party when we’ve blown it. And, yet we do, and sometimes when people discuss that, we get uncomfortable.

Those conversations, those moments, always remind me of this post, which is why I thought it might be good to talk about God and Bob Schneider again.

Bob Schneider is one of my favorite musicians on the planet. He is a songwriter of catastrophic talent and his lyrics are beautiful and challenging. He once wrote a song about God. It explored some really interesting concepts about who God is in some ways that could easily be taken as offensive. So, Bob was forced to change the lyrics and in a brilliant stroke of sarcasm explained the whole situation this way:

“We had to change one word in the song. Basically because I was just afraid we were going to offend a lot of people. Basically I’m all about the money when it comes to making records. It’s cash first. It’s give me the money and you know forget art, as it were, forget the original artistic integrity of the song. Just make sure that I can appeal to as many people as humanly possible so that I can make the most amount of money so that I can have the biggest, fanciest steaks and most comfortable socks to wear on my feet. So, anyways, we changed one of the words.”

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Recently, a friend surprised me with a problem she was having at church. I’d never thought about this particular issue. I’d never once even noticed it. But here’s how our conversation went:

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I didn’t realize husbands were supposed to do this.

This was not part of my vows. This has never been mentioned in any marriage book I’ve read or counseling session I’ve sat in. And yet, two days ago, my wife let me know I was dropping the ball in our marriage. How?

Well, here’s what she said:

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