Linda Sammaritan's Blog, page 2

Wise Enough to Know I’m Not Wise Enough

Epiphany. January 6.

The Christmas season on the Church calendar always finishes with Epiphany commemorating the Wise Men who followed the star to Bethlehem and discovered the young Messiah.

How did those men know the star was important? Maybe God told them. Maybe they had studied the writings of that ancient Jewish prophet Daniel who had lived in Babylon and Susa, the capital of Persia. Regardless, those sages were wise enough to know the star was important to all of mankind, even if they didn’t understand the whole story. So, a group of learned men acted on what they knew and left what they didn’t know with a God who could see far beyond all of their wisdom put together .

How many times has God challenged me to follow his lead?

Do I wait until I fully understand the situation before I take a step of obedience? I hope not!

God constantly reveals to us the first step in the direction He wants us to go, but He rarely maps out the entire journey.  When I look back on almost half a century with Jesus, I see His instructions for the first step of many a journey. Kind of like in the movie when Indiana Jones had to take a step of faith onto the invisible bridge. 

 My Life Example 1:

God: Speak to that difficult parent of one of your students.

Me: What do I say? The mom hates me.

God: Just go. I’ll give you the words when you get there.

He did! It worked out well for parent, teacher, and child.

My Life Example 2:

God: Dedicate your children to Me and teach them of Me.

Me: Yes, I dedicate them to You. Now—how do I teach them?

God: Keep listening to Me. Remain faithful and obedient.

I did, usually. Sometimes, it felt like three steps forward and two steps back in my ability to obey, but forty-six years later all of my children serve Christ.

My Life Example 3:

God: I will lead you out of this dark time. Hold My hand.

Me (Hanging on for dear life): Where are we going?

God: Just hold my hand.

I did. I followed His Light ahead of me, one step at a time, and He led me forward to deeper Joy.

You can see with just three examples that I had the choice–

To obey or to whine or to give up.

I couldn’t see the whole picture. God did not set a complete map before me.

Those situations and more became a habit of trust. It didn’t matter whether I had embarked on a new adventure like motherhood, or if I’d been battered by life. God showed me a first step. I chose to obey and take that first step. I was wise enough to know He was in control, and it was okay if I wasn’t wise enough to be master of my own life. He carried me forward.

Here’s what I’ve learned because I’ve been wise enough to know that I’m not wise enough.Life isn’t always good.

How can it be? This is a fallen world, and even when we renounce our sin-nature and accept Jesus as Lord and Savior, the world remains in Satan’s doomed clutches.

Pray and trust God.

He will take care of His children in this imperfect world. (Psalm 91)

Ask Jesus for help when I don’t know the next step.

I may not be wise enough to figure out the best path for myself, but I am wise enough to know who has the answer I need.

Pray for confirmation when I receive an answer from Him.

God doesn’t mind that kind of request when I just want to make sure I’m hearing from Him and not listening to my own wishful thinking. He knows I don’t doubt His wisdom. I doubt my own.

If you’ve felt guilty for questioning God’s direction, ask yourself this key question:

Am I doubting God, or am I doubting me?

If you realize you’re not wise enough to understand God’s ways, be encouraged. You are wise enough to know you’re not wise enough. And God is pleased!

 

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The Gulf Between Creation and the I AM

“I am such an imperfect creation. A puny worm. Worthless. How could Jesus possibly love me?”

Have you ever said the same kind of thing in your mind? Me too. Yet I know I’m God’s child. Of course, He loves me.

You know why? Because I have sought Him out. Because I want to know Him, and He is pleased with my feeble efforts.

“Feeble efforts.”* I lifted that phrase from the deep writings of A.W. Tozer. He speaks of “God’s transcendence,”* how far God is above everything and everyone else.

God is so far above us we can’t measure it. I don’t mean His physical place in our universe. I mean His place in all of existence, which Tozer writes about. After reading his chapter on “Divine Transcendence,” I made a two-column chart in my journal. On the left, I wrote, “The Created.” On the right, “The I AM.

 

Under “The Created,” I made a sample list of animals from the amoeba to the archangel. A huge difference between the two; actually, a huge difference between amoeba and man (homo sapiens), then another huge difference between man and angels.

No matter how colossal those differences are, they’re finite. Every single one of them was created. God initiated the beginning of their lives.

 

 
But God Himself? HE IS.

No beginning, no end. He is “Light Unapproachable.”* He is “Love without Measure.”* The gulf between God and His creation is infinite. I wanted to insert a picture depicting that vast separation, but nothing on the internet comes close.

Should this infinite space between the God of the universe and ourselves terrify us? Yes. And no.

Yes—especially if we have no faith. Which some may think is an oxymoron. If you have no faith, you won’t know what to fear, right? Wrong. Every human being, regardless of beliefs, recognizes they might have missed the mark on key truths in our universe. Even the most devout atheist must ask himself or herself, “What if I’m wrong? What if there really is a God?” That question can bring about terror. (Romans 1:21, 22, 28)

For the believer, though, fear enters in the garb of awed respect. We recognize the beautiful “otherness” of our Creator and Savior. We bemoan our terrible inability to be worthy of His Love. Yet, at the same time, He has shown us His Love—His crucifixion and His resurrection—and we fall at His feet, literally or figuratively, and we worship Him.

 

 

Often, when I meet people who flippantly question why I would have faith in a god who allows terrible things to happen, I can only answer with, “All I know is that God is God, and I am not.”

 

God is God And I Am Not

 

THAT is the infinite gulf between creation and the Omnipotent, All-knowing God.

Let us give thanks for His awesome goodness!

 

Tozer, A.W., The Knowledge of the Holy, Harper Collins Publisher, 1961, p. 71-73.

Photo credits: Bow and Worship by Luis Alberto Sanchez Terrones on Unsplash, Man and the Stars by Dino Reichmuth on Unsplash, feature photo by Cherry Laithang on Unsplash.

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