God is Bigger Than Us
Genesis begins with the iconic words.
In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth.
How about we all say Wow!!
First, we can all see this means God is not a part of this universe and so cannot be studied by our scientific means. God is bigger than us by a degree that we cannot imagine.
If God took no initiative to explain Himself to us, then we would be lost completely,
As soon as He does, we have a problem. Our eyes are so fixed on this world that we have trouble conceiving of that world. We have not entered God’s world. Occasionally, we may feel we have touched it somehow in our spirit.
What do angels consistently say when they appear to people in the Bible? They say, “Do not be afraid.”
Why do they say that? They are other wordly and so terrifying to us people of the 5 senses.
What about God the Father? Terrifying, could be the first word we get. Our Heavenly Father is so far beyond us that we cannot grasp Him completely.
His ways are not our ways
When Jesus encountered people to include his disciples, He often perplexed them. Jesus is often the weird one in any interaction he has with people. He never apologizes. He also never compromises.
Let me say Jesus is a bad negotiator, thankfully. Jesus did not compromise himself, so gave us the best possible view of God while we are still on this earth.
Just the same, we have trouble.
Jesus used the wicked Assyrians to ‘train’ his people. He used the cruel Babylonians to crush them and exile them. How is this good?
God used persecution of the Chinese church to bring fabulous growth. However, the success of the Muslim armies in the 7th century AD effectively exterminated the North African church, How was that good?
What we can say is that God knows so much more than we know that He regularly puzzles us by what he does in history. See also Life is Out of Control and God is Not.
God is Bigger and We Are Naturally Mystified
Now, how does that work out in our lives? I chatted with a family that went too the mission field and they kids started to get the language in local preschool and they were getting what they wanted as it were, Then family needs in America drove then back to care for the old people for what proved to be 5 years. Then, they went back and they kids had completely forgotten the language and had no interest in learning by studying as that us 10 times as hard. Then, they found that they were not good at homeschooling, and the remote place they lived did not have any other options, so finally they had to move back to an International school in a developed area and trash foreign kids instead of their plan to be in with the culture they gave their lives to.
That is so hard. It is not efficient. Where is God in all this? Yes, God has his own ways, and we are hard pressed to explain how he is working in all this. It is OK. Our heavenly Father asks us to do our best and sees us as little children. Our feeble ways do not usually lead to harvest of hundreds of souls for God. Yet, all these messy geopolitical and individual family stories adds up to over 2.5 Billion people who say they are Christian.
God is working His purpose out, and we are privileged to be a part of it. However, we still have this problem of not understanding God or how He works. Should we be surprised that we do not understand but he does?
God Will Frustrate Us
We may be disturbed by political issues or family problems. Many times, we will strongly think that X should happen even while God is working for Y. As humans, we have to have the humility to see that God’s ways are greater than ours. We need to let God be God. We need to follow Him in that Spirit.
Jesus told us simply to love him and love others as we loves ourselves. Micah says it like this:
He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly[a] with your God.
We cannot imagine what God has prepared for us when we leave this earth, but God blesses us by letting us follow him in our limited thinking with humility here.
