"Too Wonderful!"
The first word of Scripture - "In" - speaks much to the entire message of the Bible and God's historical working.
"In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth" (Genesis 1:1).
Divine involvement, based on our Lord's pervasive presence and perpetual activity, supplies a primary theme of the Scriptural record. "God… worketh all things after the counsel of His own will" (Ephesians 1:3; 11). As the saying goes, "History is His Story." It doesn't always look or feel as if such truth is true. Countless things have happened, and continue to happen, that are not God's will. He made angels and human beings with the freedom to respond to Him or reject Him, leading to sin and its horrific consequences. This does not, however, thwart the ongoing purpose of our Heavenly Father to exalt and reveal "the eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Ephesians 1:11). He is wise enough, present enough, powerful enough, loving enough, and involved enough to fulfill His historical intentions amid the darkness of a fallen creation He will ultimately redeem for the glory of the Lord Jesus. "He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself" (Philippians 3:21).
Had God created conscious beings without freedom, His involvement would have been required to fulfill His purposes. We might still wonder how He could fit so many angelic and human pieces together to execute His will. However, an infinitely greater wonder presents itself to our hearts and minds as we ponder our Lord's working in the midst of real freedom that leads to real consequences, both positively and negatively. No one other than God has even the slightest understanding of how such a process takes place. The Apostle Paul well knew this: "O the depths of both the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out!" (Romans 11:33).
Our inability to understand actually shines brilliant light into our hearts. God is God and we are not. It is enough to know that He knows, and enough to know that He calls us to trust Him about things we cannot know. He made us for such faith, and for the blessed opportunity as conscious beings to know some, to know more, but never to know all. Both light and darkness thus illuminate our way, and most importantly, lead us to loving worship as we discover truth about God's involvement in all things - and as we acknowledge that some truth will forever lie beyond our ability to see.
"O Lord, Thou hast searched me, and known me. Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off. Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O Lord, Thou knowest it altogether. Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid Thine hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it."
(Psalm 139:1-6).
Weekly Memory Verse
O the depths of both the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out!
(Romans 11:33).
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