Daniel 4:35
All the people's of the earth are regarded as nothing. He does as he pleases with the power of Heaven and the peoples of earth. No one can hold back his hand or say to him: "What have you done?"
I am in the process of reading Francis Chan's "Crazy Love." I am really enjoying the book so far. It is pretty challenging, and I am not even too far into it. I will say, this line from the first chapter has been hard for me to shake off: "Can you worship a God who isn't obligated to explain his actions to you?"
Wow. That is a challenging line. He goes on to say that it is our own arrogance that demands explanations for God. He is the God of the universe. Psalms says that "Our God is in Heaven, He does whatever pleases Him." I will be completely honest with all of you (the 3 people who read this), that is incredibly challenging for me. When stuff happens in my life, there are times when I feel like God owes me an explanation. Yet, that couldnt be further from the truth. Our God created everything. He loves us, but he never promises us that he will explain himself. It is good that he doesn't even attempt to explain everything to us, because our minds couldn't even comprehend it.
However, that isn't the most challenging line of the first chapter. He says this....
We keep on questioning Him: "Why did you make me with this body instead of that one?" "Why are so many people dying of starvation?" "Why are there so many planets with nothing living on them?" "Why is my family so messed up?" "Why don't you make Yourself more obvious to the people who need You?"
The answer to each of these questions is simply this: because He's God. He has more of a right to ask us why so many people are starving
Far too often we as Christians are frustrated with God and ask him why he is doing this or that, when really we have no right to demand an explanation.
I will end with this last quote from Chan...Colossians 1:16 tells us that everything is created FOR God....Don't we live instead as though God is created for us, to do our bidding, to bless us, and to take care of our loved ones?"
Sometimes it is hard for me to remember in my prayer time to just praise God for who he is. For all that He created. For everything he decides to do in my life. For everything. Instead, I usually spend my prayer time asking God why he is doing this or that, or asking him to do something. And that isn't bad, we are told in scripture to present our requests to God...The problem is, is that sometimes that is all we do, and we don't just spend some time praising God for all that He is and all that He has done oris doing. I guess If I can leave a challenge for you this week let it be this...In your prayer time just thank God for all that He is.
This whole post is kind of a endorsement for the book I guess..It seems pretty awesome so far...You can buy it
here.
