Worthy to Trust in All Situations
“Great is our Lord and mighty in power; His understanding has no limit.” Psalm 147:5 NIV
I’m not sure we understand how much God understands about our current situations.
God’s understanding has no limits.
God is stronger than time. HE controls time; if He wants to take His time, He can. He can stop all clocks, if He wants to. God is not limited in any way by it. God never hurries. There are no deadlines against which He has to work. Time is never a problem for Him.
Are you worried about the future? He’s there right now. Are you unhappy about something in the past? He was there at that very moment. In the hospital room when you were born, He was right there. The greatest days or worst days of your life, God was right there. God is always right there.
First, there doesn’t exist a place that He isn’t right there right now. (“Please be with them, Lord.” — He is.)
Second, there is no “missing information” for Him – There isn’t anything that He doesn’t know. God knows everything that there is to know. We can’t say, “But Lord, You don’t know...” because He DOES know. Everything.
Third, God knows every possible outcome of a plan. He knows every possible factor of a decision – He knows every circumstance surrounding it.
He knows the human intended outcomes, He also knows the unintended outcomes, and, most important of all, God knows the ACTUAL outcomes: He knows EXACTLY what will happen and what will result from any decision or action. He even knows the REAL outcomes that go beyond human lifespans! (a decision that you make that would affect not just you but would affect your great-great grandchildren!)
God’s understanding has no limits.
If you think that your decision-making ability is pretty wise and thorough, and that you might have figured out something better than God does, how could that happen? Your “wisdom” came from Him. You couldn’t possibly be wiser than the One who gave you wisdom. We’re like children who think they know something or have figured it out.
We know relatively nothing compared to Him. We have relatively no experience compared to His experience. We have relatively no wisdom compared to His wisdom. Because we have limits - lots of limits! God has NONE.
These days, many of us are making decisions for our churches or our jobs, and we need wisdom. Probably, we are likely questioning God's timing and His placement of us where we are, and we certainly don’t understand the entire swirl of coronavirus re-openings and re-closings. Our understanding has a very finite limit.
God’s understanding, however, has no limits.
“Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable His judgments, and His paths beyond tracing out!
Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been His counselor?
For from Him and through Him and for Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever!
Amen.” (Romans 11:34-36 NIV)
One of my favorite passages is Isaiah 55 (easily connected to Psalm 147 and Romans 11):
8 “My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord. (NLT)
“And My ways are far beyond anything you could imagine.
9 For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so My ways are higher than your ways
and My thoughts higher than your thoughts.
10 “The rain and snow come down from the heavens and stay on the ground to water the earth. They cause the grain to grow, producing seed for the farmer and bread for the hungry.
11 It is the same with My word. I send it out, and it always produces fruit. It will accomplish all I want it to, and it will prosper everywhere I send it.”
Someday in Heaven, I think that we all are going to find out that God really, really, REALLY knew what He was doing! We certainly should trust Him more than we do.
And we should trust Him more because He is good and because He loves us and is active in taking care of each of us.
Psalms 36:5-6 NLT “Your unfailing LOVE, O Lord, is as vast as the heavens (A very rough estimate of 10 trillion galaxies in the universe. Multiplying the galaxies by the estimated 100 billion stars results in a large number indeed: 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars, or a "1" with 24 zeros after it. And how many planets could there be?) God’s love is vast. He will always love.
Your FAITHFULNESS reaches beyond the clouds (in every direction possible, North-South, East-West, Up-Down) God’s faithfulness is completely all-encompassing. He will always be faithful.
Your RIGHTEOUSNESS is like the mighty mountains, (perfectly solid, massive, unmovable, huge). God’s righteousness is absolutely trustworthy. He will always be righteous.
Your JUSTICE is like the ocean depths.” (How deep is the ocean? 36,000 feet or 6.8 MILES deep! That’s a mile deeper than Mt. Everest is high.) God’s justice is extensively perfect. He will always be just and fair.
Can we trust God to help us in this situation? Yes, we can!
Professor Tim McKeithen, NBC Faculty and Director Hispanic Pastoral Ministries Program
Published: 06/22/2020
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