Bloggers forgive me, it has been days since my last blog... wait a second this is starting to sound like confession and I ain't Catholic. It has been a mad past couple of weeks, and we have a couple more of high intensity coming. I have been out working until past at least 8PM almost every night, and our computer harddrive crashed in the midst of all that. You would think that God would head this stuff off when He knows we have hard days coming... I mean it's not like He doesn't know they're coming. He is God right? What kind of God would let my computer crash right in the middle of some of the busiest days since I started this ministry!?!?
Now, I haven't actually been thinking like lately, although I confess I have had those conversations with God in the past. I think we all have. I had an opportunity to ride with another one of my new favorite people, Robert. He is one of those folks that is young in the faith. He couldn't tell you about some of the more complicated theological discussions, neither would I. But what he knows, he believes and he lives it out to the fullest, and I respect him tremendously for it. (there's a lesson to learn there) We were talking about life and things we were reading in God's Word and about some of the tough stuff in the Word that we all struggle with from time to time. I had made an observation about one of the things I was reading through the early life of Moses. Specifically, I noted how it was interesting how God uses bad things and bad people in the life of His kids.
In these passages, it was the Pharaoh. While I was reading, I noticed that God was the One that was hardening Pharaoh's heart, and then He would bring about death and destruction. Like Pharaoh couldn't make up his own mind. The more I chewed on it, the more I noticed it occurring. I know this is something that really bugs alot people and even causes some to question God's character. Then I found a verse, that I hadn't noticed ever before which I think hit the nail on the head. I really like the way that the NIV renders this,
"13 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Get up early in the morning, confront Pharaoh and say to him, 'This is what the LORD, the God of the Hebrews, says: Let my people go, so that they may worship me, 14 or this time I will send the full force of my plagues against you and against your officials and your people, so you may know that there is no one like me in all the earth. 15 For by now I could have stretched out my hand and struck you and your people with a plague that would have wiped you off the earth. 16 But I have raised you up for this very purpose, that I might show you my power and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth." (Ex. 9:13-16)
Wow! God's main purpose for Pharaoh was that His name may be proclaimed! This can be hard to swallow for some, but the thing about being God is that He is God! He is in charge. Paul echoes this same argument in his letter to the Romans. We are created for God's purposes. This may seem like the "dark side" of His sovereignty, but we cannot isolate one of God's character traits and put Him in a box. He is so much more! His holiness is in perfect balance with His mercy. He sees the beginning and the end. We are just small pieces to a puzzle that is so infinitely bigger than we can comprehend. But as finite beings we are often tempted to perceive and judge God's intentions based on our limited viewpoint.
When I have weeks like I have had recently, I cling to the fact that God is good, all the time. I may not see all that He has laid out for me, but I can trust His heart keeping in mind that He is God and I am not. Just because I cannot see all of what He is doing doesn't give me the right to question His character. It would behoove us to revisit the life of Job and check out the dialogue between God and Job in chapter 38. It puts things into perspective. Consider what John says in his first epistle, "This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. " (1 John 1:5)
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