05/22/2018
God is our creator, and has worked out the means of our redemption, our salvation; Jesus was nailed to the cross, but it was God’s will that placed Him there. Have you picked up your cross to follow Jesus, or are you still waiting on God to say come? Waiting on our Father becomes much easier once we realize that He formed us, saved us, and it will be in His house that we will live forever. But do we know who He is, or do we believe in a mystery?
“For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him comes my salvation.”
Psalms 62:1 ESV
I once heard a humorous saying that is quite wide spread; as a matter of fact it is said in many countries, and by many cultural groups, so I honestly can’t remember the first time I heard it. This is dark humor, but is something a father would say to a disobedient child. It goes like this: “I brought you into this world and I can take you out of it; and replace you with another one just like you!” Thank goodness our Heavenly Father doesn’t feel this way about us, but He did create us, and sometimes we wonder why He tolerates our disobedience. We wonder why he doesn’t just erase the chalkboard on which he drew us... and begin anew. Perhaps in the story of Noah He came close, but there are some who justify His tolerance by convincing themselves that He must have just walked away from His creation.
“By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.”
Hebrews 11:3 ESV
I have often heard people say that God created Adam and Eve, but I can tell from the rest of their conversation that they seem to believe that He did so that once, only to start the pendulum swinging so that from then on the job was turned over to nature. They have a biological mother and father that they know and love, and then something called a Heavenly Father, but they can’t really understand his role in their lives. They know they should love Him, but don’t really give Him credit for their physical existence. This is a very deist view with a touch of agnosticism, but is held by some who call themselves Christian.
God is mysterious, and He is absolutely real at the same time. We understand what we read of Him, and our experiences with Him, but there are so many aspects of His self, and existence that go beyond our ability to comprehend. Waiting on Him can be a challenge when you don’t feel He is active and real in your life every day. Waiting on Him can be hard when you can’t feel the nail holes in His hands. So how do we come to the place where we trust in His active love for us, and the daily help He is to us without touching the wound in his side? We do so by faith, by believing those things we can’t see.
“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”
Hebrews 11:1 ESV
We believe in Him like air, and gravity, and centrifugal force. We feel his effects on our life, and use them to reassure ourselves that He is exactly the God we read about in the Bible, and the Father that Jesus prayed and wept tears of blood before in the Garden of Gethsemane. Faith, it is having a firm grasp on something that can’t be held... it is feeling love in an embrace or a kiss, and yet knowing that this is only its expression.
How long would you wait on a husband or wife to come home from a long trip? How long would love last after the death of a loved one? If what you possessed was true love in the first place, then the answer would be forever. This is how long our willingness to wait on God should be, and although it can be painful, it should be unyielding.
I knew of a man who lost His wife of many years, and her memory, and the love he felt for her continued on. One day, in his loneliness, he met another woman who captured his heart, and they were married, but that new love didn’t erase the old one... it had a life of its own, and became another... not a replacement. Love knows no end, but sometimes the pain does. This man was fortunate to have two great loves; he loved, and lived with the one, while waiting to see the other again one day. Waiting is made easier when we realize the love we hold... we feel it like a warm pebble in our hand... and sometimes two.
God is not simply a mystery, He is the love we hold like the pebbles, and the overwhelming reality of it in an embrace. He is the reality in faith, and the faith in a reality we can’t touch. Waiting on Him becomes easy when we understand this very real part of His nature. It allows us to feel air as He breathes, and trust that when we let go of His hand we will fall. Waiting on God is made easier by the reality in our faith.
Prayer:
Father, thank you for your love contained in my faith that makes those times when I wait on you bearable. Thank you for the tiny pebbles you have placed in my hand that remind me how real you are, and how patient you have been with me. Help me Lord to embrace your Son Jesus Christ, and know you by the holes in His Hands. Thank you for his real assurance of my faith in you, and for the tears I shed in prayer before you. You are my God, and walk with me every day, and see me through all things; you have never abandoned me, or turned your head. Though I may wait, I do so trusting in you, and knowing your Word is true. Great are you my God, and great is my faith that bears the scars of having fallen, scars that serve as reminders that you will always pick me up. You are Holy Father, and in your embrace I feel your love... now and forever.
Rich Forbes