10 Things I Wish I Knew When I Was 20 – Part 5
July 24, 2005
Dear Friends,
The fifth thing I wish I knew when I was twenty is:
#5 – God will do His job just fine. When I look back over my life in God’s service, so many of the controversies, worries and false teachings I have engaged in could easily have been avoided if I had only trusted that God knew what He was doing and that He would do it. This sounds ludicrous, but in my experience, most of us do it. For example, it is one of my favorite object lessons to ask a group of people what they would change if God gave them His power for just 24 hours. You get a lot of great suggestions.
- “I would bring the Kingdom.”
- “I would get rid of all poverty, sickness and death.”
- “I would bring the Good News to all parts of the earth.”
Then I suggest to them what I think the right answer is — “I would do nothing.” Why? Because if God truly knows what He is doing, wouldn’t He have done it already? If poverty and disease need to be removed from the planet today, can’t God do it? Of course, He can. But He doesn’t because He has all the facts and we only a scant few. Yet, we vainly think we do know better.
Abraham asked the same question we should ask ourselves. “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” (Gen. 18:25) He will. Will we? How many of our arguments and controversies are concerning God’s job? Answer: Too many. Let’s ask ourselves this question: Of the two, which of us is more likely to not do our job very well? Us or God? Yet, we spend an inordinate amount of time worrying about God’s job versus our own. I have learned to spend more time worrying about my own performance of duties and less (a LOT less) on God performing His.
My prayer life has been an excellent example of not “getting it.” I have always been offering God suggested solutions to my problems. I have always been giving God choices. “If you can’t do A, God, could you do B?” Instead, I have learned to offer up the problem and the solution to God. I explain the problem to God (which He already knows better than me). I ask for His help and His guidance. I ask that His will be done. I ask that I use this as a way to improve me in His service. There is no offer of solutions from me. There is no suggestion that maybe God could or should do this or that. I acknowledge that He is right and I need to change. I have now done my job – humble myself before the Creator and asked for His will to be done. Now
There are so many examples of people in the Scriptures that question God. There are probably so many as a strong lesson to us. Habakkuk argued with God over His use of the Chaldeans. The Psalmist and several other prophets grew concerned over the prosperity of the wicked. “God are you up there?” “Do you see what is going on?” “Are you going to do anything about it?” He is. He does. He will. Trust Him. He has been doing this a long time and hasn’t made a mistake yet.
Have a great week!
