I Don't Understand

 

            I was walking with my good friend Patti this morning as we do most Saturdays, and we were discussing dependance on God versus a bank account when from out of my coat pocket my phone speaks and says, “I don’t understand.” In the moment it made us chuckle, but it is so appropriate because the phone (a worldly item) can’t understand that kind of faith. The world doesn’t understand that kind of faith. I have often heard stories of men and women of faith totally dependent on God, prayers being answered in supernatural ways at the very last minute. (Read up on George Mueller who ran an orphanage depending entirely on God). I desire that type of faith because try as I might, at times I still lean on my bank accounts and fear can creep in when my funds are low.

            There is no way to completely understand the love of God, His ways are incomprehensible to the human mind. His approach to answering prayers is often what we mortals would term unconventional. For instance, consider the sacrifice of His son Jesus. It boggles the mind that this was the means of salvation God designed. When I consider the term sacrifice, I usually think of the cross. Yet, it occurs to me that this is the season when the sacrifice was first offered. Imagine yourself living in the most resplendent abode you can conjure up in your mind, having men and angels at your beck and call, being surrounded with incomprehensible love (this is my vision of heaven), having all power to accomplish whatever your heart desires, and lacking no good thing. Now, shift your thinking to the humbling experience of becoming a newborn baby, totally mortal and totally dependent on others for absolutely everything. On top of that, being born to a teenage, unwed mother and laid in a stable manger then growing up in the confines of the flesh, learning to talk, walk, eat and everything else. Talk about humbling!

            The sacrifice of God’s Son did not just happen on the cross at Golgotha, it happened from His conception until His resurrection. It was not just a one-time three-hour ordeal, which it is frequently reduced to. Jesus was God made man, He took on human form for our benefit, he doesn’t just understand the plights of humanity He knows it personally. He knows hunger and thirst and pain and heartache first-hand. This enables us to relate to Him and know that He can relate to us quite personally. When things go haywire for me as a parent and my heart aches for my children or grandchildren I can depend on the fact that God’s heart aches even more, He loves the people in my life even more than I am capable of doing.

            In these days of social distancing I find myself leaning into God more deeply than ever. What a blessing!! It is my sincere prayer that others are leaning into God too, maybe for the first time or the thousand and first time. Prayer is a time of humbling oneself before God, it’s no use trying to whitewash the truth about our sin, we can’t hide anything from God. If Jesus, God’s own Son, can humble Himself to take on flesh (which He did), we must be willing to be humble too. A prideful human is a foolish human unless his/her pride is in God. Proverbs 16:18 “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.”

2 Corinthians 12:9 “But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.”

            Grace can be an acronym for: God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense. Jesus paid it all, you can depend on Him! Believe.