IT IS WHAT IT IS vs HE IS WHO HE IS

“It is what it is.” Several times I’ve blogged ranting on this expression. I will not reiterate all the reasons I dislike this popular phrase—because it is what it is. Today, I just add one more diatribe. Here goes: “It Is What It Is” has become the god of a people who have embraced naturalism—the belief that matter is all there is. See, my beef is not just that this expression is nauseatingly popular in common parlance. It’s that it is revelatory of the effects of a culture being taught evolution. If evolution is true, all there is simply IS. It is what it is. It is predetermined. It is a result of natural causes. We have this god, “It Is What It Is,’ because humanity tried to rid itself of the accountability the existence of a personal God required. Our world embraced the pseudo-scientific theory of life arising from evolution (which scientifically is not a part of the evolutionary theory). Naturalism got rid of Creator God, but was left with nothing but the god “It is what it is.” I’m not the first to note that the Judeo-Christian God’s name, Yahweh, is “I Am That I Am” but the god of our society is “It Is What It Is.” Bottom line, our society, once permeated with the belief in the Judeo-Christian God, has traded the “I Am That I Am” for “It Is What It Is.” No wonder our society has cut loose from any basis of morality. No wonder there is no aspiration for goodness, greatness, destiny. No wonder there is such nihilistic despair. When “It Is What It Is” is society’s god, its refrain is “Let us eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die. Nihilism has led to hedonism. And hedonism to further nihilism. The problem with all gods other than the true God, Yahweh, is that they are too small for our needs and problems. Faced with real-life conundrums, crises, tragedies, losses, today’s, society can only respond with “It Is What It Is.” Those who know the true God can say in the face of the worst of life’s catastrophes, news, cataclysms, and calamities, God is “I Am that I Am.” God’s name, I Am That I Am, was first revealed to Moses with the instructions to convey it to the people of Israel when they were in the worse of conditions—abject slavery—and were facing, though soon to be delivered, a hostile environment and enemies in their traverse across a desert while headed to their Promise Land. God said, “Tell them “I Am” has sent you. In other words, not only God is the Eternally Existent One, “He is the God that will be there for you. He is that God that will be whatever you need him to be when you face whatever you face.” As the children of Israel, we are facing, both as a nation, a people, and in many cases as individuals, an unprecedented crisis. Multitudes with a nihilistic shrug and a despaired slump of shoulders will resignedly speak the name of their god, “It Is What It Is.” We, who know the name of Yahweh, can respond differently. We can say, “Our God is not ‘It Is What It Is.’ Our God is ‘I Am That I Am.’” In other words, we, faced with overwhelming, disconcerting difficulty, don’t say, “It Is What It Is,” but with hope and faith, “He is Who He is.” He is exactly what we need for this. --Pastor Clifford Hurst