playing the god card

Steve came into my dorm room with a cloudy look on his face. He had just asked a girl out on a date, and judging by his muffled cursing, I had a feeling I knew how it went.

"Tina said no," he said, striking the desk with his fist.
"I hate it when they play the God card!"

Playing the God card, though frustrating for Steve's romantic life, was an understandable ploy for girls on campus to use. As students we were encouraged to make career decisions based on our faith. Why not our dating paths as well?

It is an easy frame of mind to fall into. With so many young Christians on campus, we all challenged each other not to be impacted by culture, but to influence it for the glory of God. To accomplish this our thinking had to be faith-centered, influencing our actions. Often our word choice reflected this thinking as well.

There are two main reasons why being rejected by "the God card" is such a tough blow.
First, how do you plead your case when the other person is deferring to the highest authority? "Actually, uh, Tina, God told me we are supposed to be dating..."
Second, we all knew that using such God-coded language was a roundabout way of saying, "I don't like you." At that point it's just a slap in the face.

But why the temptation to use the God card at all? Why not just straight-shoot?
As a religious person I can relate to the desire to be inside God's head. The Bible speaks strongly against those who act against God's will, making it easy for the believer to try too hard to know what God's will is in every category of their lives, even every moment.
Whereas it can be helpful to remind ourselves of our core values, can someone really expect to know what God wants them to be doing every second of the day?

I don't think so. Vaguely speaking, I think God's ways are higher than ours, above our understanding, and that's ok.

The Bible is a large and extensive book. In it people are given teaching how to live well, and many of these are general principles that we have to take and use our brains to figure out application for our lives.

I think that any time we claim to know what God wants in a specific situation we have to be wary in how we carry ourselves. Because the truth is that other people are praying and reading their Bible just as carefully as we are!

This goes back to a general principle of how people live out their faith. What if we claim to do something because God told us, and in fact God didn't?

In my opinion it's a little presumptious, and even worse, lazy rhetoric.