Understanding God
13July 24, 2012 by Cole Ryan
Why?
We often don’t understand why God would do some of the things He does, or why the bible says some of the things it does. I believe there are certain things within our relationship with God that we will never be able to understand why..
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:8-9
His thoughts, ideas, and ways are so much bigger than ours. We believe in such a great, immense God that we will never be able to fully understand why He does what He does until we are in Heaven. It is comforting knowing that our God is bigger, and His ways are greater than we can comprehend.
“As you do not know the path of the wind,
or how the body is formed in a mother’s womb,
so you cannot understand the work of God,
the Maker of all things.” Ecclesiastes 11:5
I think we all need to understand that everything we have is by Gods grace. It is all His, none of it belongs to us. Many of us feel like we are entitled to everything. I believe the most humble man on earth still thinks too highly of himself for God. God created us out of dust, God created us, yet we think we have a right to anything. It is by God’s grace that we are alive today. We blame God or complain to God when things don’t go our way, but it is because of Gods grace that anything ever does..
“We think to complain to God when a bridge falls but not to thank Him that every bridge does not.” Matt Chandler
Sometimes we put Gods actions in submission of our reasoning. We don’t think God would do something so we say “oh I don’t believe in that part of the bible” or “I don’t believe in a God that would do that”. We try to twist His words until we like them. Maybe sometimes we don’t see the whole picture. Maybe He knows something we don’t know. Remember, His thoughts and ways are so much greater and higher than ours (Isaiah 55).
If I could explain God, He would seize to be God.
My husband and I have been going through one of these times lately, as I search for a job. These times when we’re tempted to shake our fists at the sky, reminding God how hard we’ve worked to get to this place and how we’ve only ever done what He asks, so surely we must deserve a breakthrough, right?
Isaiah 55 has been a frequently recurring Scriptural theme in our lives during this exact same time period. I highly doubt it’s a coincidence, as I choose not to believe in coincidence, but God. Thanks for bringing me back to it today. Blessings.
Thought-provoking blog.
With regards to your post, I think you are right on target. We constantly want to define God by our own terms and unfortunately that often means that God is supposed to operate in a way that maintains our happiness. In reality, God always has our good in mind and desires an abundant life for us. I’m pretty sure he defines our good differently than we do and His abundant life doesn’t necessarily mean a comfortable life. Wow, it can be a tough pill to swallow but the verse you highlighted gives reassurance that He knows better than we do what He is doing.
God’s grace is a marvelous thing and I know I take for granted far too often. Thanks for reminding me of that.
I think every believer goes through times when our preconceived notions of the nature of God fail us. It’s at those moments that either our faith fails us completely, or we realize that God is so much more infinite and different than we’ve been taught. No one can know God in His fullness, which includes how He chooses to express His justice and mercy.
At times of tragedy, we can only cling to the hem of the garment of God and pray that He not abandon us or forsake us. At such times, we can only ponder that some great mystery has been laid before us that we may never understand.
Thank you for the reminder. It’s true that sometimes we act as if we deserve something from Him who gave us everything “only by His grace” as you wrote above. And it’s humbling to know that God does not owe us anything, in fact, we owe Him for everything.
For you and your readers, here’s a related post “When God Says No” >>
http://seekersportal.wordpress.com/2012/07/23/when-god-says-no/
Amen to that we are so full of pride keep these rolling out
This particular post really hit close to me with everything that’s been going on in my life lately. I think it’s great what you’re doing. I look forward to reading more from you.
It is so true that we get angry with God when things don’t go our way but we forget to be thankful everytime they do or for everything we take for granted that works… faith is only necessary when things are bad and it seems that is precisely the time it is hardest to have … it is so much easier to have faith when all is going well.
Right on!
I’m not the most religious of people, but I liked this post because it’s true. We can’t blame God every time something goes wrong. All the problems in this world are because of us, because man is incredibly flawed. :(
I don’t think me or anyone I know is flawed. If you see people as flawed…it is because you judge them.
‘Judge’ would not be the proper word to use. You can judge someone positively or negatively – so if I am judging them by saying they are flawed than you are judging them as well by saying they are not.
According to the bible we are all flawed because we have all sinned;
Isaiah 64:6 – “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.”
Romans 3:23 – “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
Ecclesiastes 7:20 – “There is not a righteous man on earth who does what is right and never sins.”
Reblogged this on Adam Leblanc Page.
Really nice post and very accurate about how we sometimes think about God…