I love books that highlight the character of God! As I read, I truly find myself standing in awe of our great God and find myself falling deeper in love with Him. In a world that says there is no God and in a church-age that seems to often minimize the holiness and awesomeness of God and, instead, exalt man....we need to be constantly reminded about who God really is as He has revealed Himself in His Word, the Bible.
One of the attributes Jen highlights is God's omniscience. She defines it as "....limitless in his knowledge. He knows all things, not because he has learned them, but because he is their origin. God does not learn. Learning implies change, and as we've already considered, he is unchanging."
I've known that to be true and have greatly rejoiced in the fact that God knows all things. What I didn't take time to consider until reading this chapter was just how much I often live seeking to be omniscient myself. If you had asked me a month ago if I thought I could be omniscient I would have laughed at you and said, "No way! That's an attribute for God alone and it would be blasphemy to think I could have a part in that!" And yet, here I sit, convicted by my own pursuit to control, to know more and more, to figure out the future, and to stretch beyond the here and now.
Jen says it this way throughout the pages of chapter 8:
"Whatever tomorrow holds, we can be certain that its contents will raise as many questions as they will answers. We can trust God to manage the future without our help. It is none of our business."
"Rather than obsessing over the future, learn contentment in your God-ordained innocence of what is to come....This will mean less time chasing curiosities online and more time mining the treasure in Scripture. It will mean leaving the knowledge of the future into the hands of the God who is already there. It will mean minding our own business instead of meddling. Our comfort lies not in holding all knowledge, but in trusting the One who does."
"The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law." (Deut. 29:29)
"Because God holds all knowledge, we don't have to. Our lives are filled with questions awaiting answers, but not so our omniscient God. He does not suffer the anxiety of not-knowing that plagues our days. He has no cause for worry, for all is certainty to him. We live in the darkness of partial and incomplete knowledge, but to him the darkness is as light. No fact conceals itself from his eyes or buries itself in the shifting shadows of time. We are free to spend our years learning in healthy ways, seeking to expand our understanding humbly, in such a way that we are transformed not into smarty-pants but into servants."
Psalm 139:16 says, "Your eyes saw me when I was formless; all my days were written in Your book and planned before a single one of them began." Verse 5 says that we are "encircled" by God and His hand is on us. His grace is sufficient for TODAY. His comfort brings us the joy we need for TODAY. His mercies are new TODAY. The Lord has made and called us to rejoice in TODAY.
TOMORROW is none of my business. And that is a very good thing!
Comments