FAITH IN GOD

One thing you must have as you follow God is faith. 

·         God is who he says he is.

·         He will do what he says he will do.

·         And…you will never understand everything.

Consider Job.  Did he suffer in order to be refined?  To be perfected?  To grow as a believer?

Or did he suffer as some form of punishment?

If not, why then? 

If you’ve read Job, you know.  All those sufferings came about through some sort of a challenge by satan to God.  As a result of the challenge, God – who clearly has a high regard of Job - gives satan the right to do virtually everything to Job except kill him. 

But Job never knows this, never learns this, even at the end of the book when God speaks with Job.

Maybe a personal example would be valuable.  About four years ago, suddenly I had a really violent physical attack.  Acute pain.  I wasn’t so sure I could move, or endure.  Cathy called several prayer warriors to pray and a couple rushed over to help.  Needless to say I was calling on God and on scriptures, that is, when I could think.  Pain can block thinking and prayer sometimes.  I was weak for several weeks. 

So about two or three months after all this, I was standing in the kitchen after reading the Bible and praying for a couple hours.  I was suddenly aware of the presence of the Lord right across the counter that separates our kitchen from the dining area.  And Jesus spoke to me – “I’m never going to lose you, John.”  Tears filled my eyes.  And I said, “What did I do wrong?”

And the answer came back:  “Nothing.”

So I had done nothing wrong.  I can still speculate about that horrible period and what happened, but that is all it is – speculation.

Let’s take this lesson to you specifically.  God may never answer your requests precisely as you think you would like, or give clear reasons for why things happen.   He will most certainly answer, as we are promised in scripture.  But the answer will be God’s answer.  And he no doubt knows far better than we what we should have asked.

We have to have faith.  We have to trust him!

Romans 8:28 gives us the reason we can trust – “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”

Most assuredly we can trust God and live in the peace that comes from Romans 8:28, for look at what Jesus endured for us in coming to the earth and in going to and through the cross.

While we should always seek to grow in knowledge and revelation of God and scripture and to live in the fullness of who we are in Jesus Christ, we will never understand everything.  We can work and struggle to know and understand a great deal, but everything?  No. 

God, after all, is God.

Copyright © 2013 by John Newlin