God is God and I am Not

Remembering Pastoral Advice that Helped Anchor Me

Recently I have been pondering my spiritual heritage. The strength and wisdom that my church family has sown into me over the years.

This morning, my dear friend and beloved sister in Christ, Vivian sent me a devotional that she said was a MUST READ! As I read through it, I had to agree. I wont recount the whole devotional for you, I will just copy it at the end of this post. But this devotional reminded me of one of those "anchored moments" in my Christian growth.

There are times when someone who is much like a mentor in your life says something that STICKS and changes your life forever. It is a spiritual stake in the ground...a stone of rememberance, so to speak, that Joshua spoke of, and quite often a place where you find deliverance and freedom.

The time I am remebering is after my fourth miscarriage. Were were devestated. This was the first time in all of our pregnancy losses that we had a tiny little body to deal with. Beyond the grief of losing the twins, there was an anger brewing in me at the medical community because they would not do any testing on me to find a cause of the miscarriages until I had lost 3 consecuticve babies. I needed to know an answer as to why this was happening. Since I was pregnant with twins and lost one 3 weeks prior to the other, it was as if I had two separate miscarriages though it was one twin pregnancy. Twin B (Josiah David) was a fighter! We got to see his heart beat on sonogram and then the next day he was born...far to early to survive outside of the womb. DEVESTATING.

I remember sitting in my pastors office. He shared in our loss and even shared about the losses he and his wife had earlier in their life. He was very comapssionate to our pain. As I sat there in his office expressing my anger at the medical community and the frustration of not knowing what was going on with my body that I kept miscarrying my babies, I must have said 10 times, "I just want answers. I want to know WHY!"

Pastor David, seeing past my actual question to the true need, addressed my question with, "What if God never gives you an answer?"

That kind of took me off guard because I was thinking medical answers...or so I thought. It was a Holy Spirit momen of revelation...an "anchor moment" for me. Was I really wanting to know the medical reason why? Well, in a very physical sense, YES...but there was something far deeper in my heart that needed to be addressed and Pastor recognized that. As I said in my last post, Pastor David shoots straight with you! He is honest, compassionate, and allows the Holy Spirit to bring to the surface the REAL need...and he addresses THAT need.

He sent me home with an arsenal of scriptures that I wrestled with...much like Jacob wrestling with the angel at Pinneal. Some of the passages I had to deal with, and come to terms with were "What shall separate us from the love of God?" and a list begins to form...among them are the questions of life an death. Was I going to let the death of my children separate me from the love of God?

Pastor went on to tell me the story of a friend of his in seminary who also had endured the loss of a child through miscarriage. His friend never got over his grief, became bitter and angry, and ultimately walked away from God. So pastor asked me again, "What shall separate us from the Love of God?"

Like an arrow through my heart, the truth pierced my heart and took root. And I was able to to confess like the Apostle Paul in Romans, that NOTHING shall separate me from the love of God, neither death nor life......

I am very fortunate to have a pastor who speaks truth--even when it hurts. There was a far deeper need in my life than knowing the medical reasons WHY...there was a spiritual need in my heart that he brought to my attention and helped me deal with. What if God NEVER gave me an answer to those questions? As I wrestled through several other scriptures...I finally came to the conclusion that HE is GOD and I am NOT!!

The Lord gives and the Lord takes away...BLESSED be the name of the LORD!

I hope you enjoy this devotional as much as I did!
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July 17, 2006

God questions

by John Fischer

“God is too good to be unkind, too wise to make mistakes, and too deep to explain himself.” - Unknown

Have you ever thought about the fact that God doesn't have to explain himself? Or as Paul put it, "Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?” (Romans 11:34)

Think about how often we ask or hear the following:

Why did God allow this thing to happen to me?
Why would God allow such pain and suffering on this planet?
If there is a God, why doesn't he do something about the injustice in the world?

And then think about our attempts at answering these questions while God remains silent. We not only throw questions and challenges at him, we have the audacity to think we can speak for him as well!

The worst part about this is that we act as if we deserve answers to these and similar questions. We even go so far as to suspend belief in God until we get these questions resolved to our satisfaction. Wait a minute: This is the God of the universe we are talking about. Who do we think we are? Some of this is almost on the level of grabbing a teenager by the ear, sitting him down in a chair, and saying, “Well … aren't you going to explain yourself, young man?”

What we are missing here is a relative level of humility commensurate with some acknowledgment of who we are (and are not) and who God is. In whose book is God required to explain himself? Not in any book I know of.

Moreover, in the book he left for us, the Bible, one of its oldest stories is about a righteous and good man who was afflicted with severe loss, pain, and suffering for no apparent reason. For the bulk of the book of Job, Job listens to four friends trying to figure out his predicament. After 37 chapters of justifications, accusations, and defense, they are no closer to an answer than when they started. That's when God shows up on the scene and speaks for himself. And in four more chapters, he refuses to give one shred of evidence that he intends to answer their questions. What he does present them is a series of more questions that Job, in his finiteness cannot answer – questions that establish himself as God with no requirement to explain himself, and Job, as a mere man with limited understanding and no right to know.

In the end, Job utters these words: “You asked, 'Who is this that questions my wisdom with such ignorance?' It is I – and I was talking about things I knew nothing about, things far too wonderful for me … I had only heard about you before, but now I have seen you with my own eyes. I take back everything I said, and I sit in dust and ashes to show my repentance.” (Job 42:3, 5-6 NLT)

One of the most fundamental steps of believing is deciding we are not God nor do we want to be. That's when we get down on our knees and worship God as God. That posture is the beginning of finding out.