Thought for Today
Psalm 78:56 Yet they tested the Most High God, and rebelled against him. They did not observe his decrees,
Zechariah 8:6 Thus says the LORD of hosts: Even though it seems impossible to the remnant of this people in these days, should it also seem impossible to me, says the LORD of hosts?
Luke 1:37 For nothing will be impossible with God."
Acts 11:17 If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?"
We (loudly?/proudly?) proclaim that God is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent. Do we act like we believe our own proclamations? One of our favorite ministers at our church in Houston often spoke about our “shadow side.” He warned us all that despite our best efforts to do so, we cannot hide anything from our Creator God. Truthfully, even our best efforts will not even allow us to hide anything from ourselves. The psalmist wrote, “139:13 For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother's womb.”
On September 2, 1858, speaking in Clinton, Illinois, during the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates, Abraham Lincoln made one of his most famous statements: “You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.” (www.historynewsnetwork.org) What Lincoln did not say, however, is that we cannot really ever fool God or ourselves.
Can God really see everything I think, say and do? “For nothing will be impossible with God." Obviously so. All of those ‘omnis’ stress one of the greatest truths of our faith, in scripture and in our belief, “all” always means “all.” Our Creator sees all, knows all and is everywhere. How does that work within the laws of physics? How can God really be everywhere all at once? How can God really know everything, when I still do not understand what a “gig” is on my smart phone? “Jeremiah 32:17 Ah Lord GOD! It is you who made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm! Nothing is too hard for you.” After all, God created those laws of physics . . . and everything else.
Human history is full of stories about folks who have tried to hinder God. Dictators, conquerors, criminals and others who have tried to subvert those simple instructions we find repeatedly in the Bible, e.g., “Micah 6:8 He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” Why do we so persistently try to swim upstream against the currents of God’s love? Not just all those vile, brutal, vicious characters in the history books, but also all the rest of us ordinary folks?
Do we believe we can “hinder” God? Can we somehow hide our thoughts and actions from the God who knitted us together in our mothers’ wombs? Can we even hide anything from ourselves? That “shadow side” is not truly lurking in the shadows, it is right out in the sunlight, obvious to ourselves and others. We like to talk about “You are what you eat,” but truthfully ‘we are what we think, say and do.’
In seminary, I took several courses in ethics. I learned about some of the various theories about good and beneficence. “Teleology (from τέλος, telos, 'end', 'aim', or 'goal', and λόγος, logos, 'explanation' or 'reason') or finality is a branch of causality giving the reason or an explanation for something as a function of its end, its purpose, or its goal, as opposed to as a function of its cause.” (en.wikipedia.org) " Deontology is an ethical theory that uses rules to distinguish right from wrong. Deontology is often associated with philosopher Immanuel Kant. Kant believed that ethical actions follow universal moral laws, such as ‘Don’t lie. Don’t steal. Don’t cheat.’” (ethicsunwrapped.utexas.edu)
Do we believe that the ends justify the means? Do we believe that there are “universal moral laws” applicable to everything we think, say or do? As a Christian, my own theory of ethical, moral existence is firmly anchored in Micah and in the Bible. Whenever my own ‘shadow side’ tries to assert itself into my thoughts, words or actions, I take my nearest Bible and immerse myself in the words of God. I reconnect with the God “who formed my inward parts” who “knit me together in my mother's womb.”
Stay safe, read the Bible, trust God,
Pastor Ray