My Thoughts are not Your Thoughts

September 17, 2013
Kristen White

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the LORD.            Isaiah 55:8

 

Chapter 2 of Unfinished contains Stearns' overview of The Big Story - God's dealings with his wayward people; how He contends with us, loving us like a parent loves his children.  I have to confess right off, I'm not on solid ground here. I'm puzzled.  

Let me ask you, if YOU knew in advance that a huge project of yours would cause you so much heartache - that from the git-go you would have to have a plan B – and knowing that plan B would cause you even MORE heartache, would you go ahead with Plan A?  I think I know the answer.  God must have known that His creation wasn't going to begin at all well. Adam and Eve were HUMAN!  And throughout O.T. history, their progeny disappointed Him at almost every turn. He sent prophets to warn, and actually lost patience several times, nuking Sodom and Gomorrah and setting Noah and his family afloat while he destroyed everything else.  

He did go silent for 500 years though. I sort of wonder about the conversations in Heaven during that period.  But in the fullness of time. . . .  

God executed His plan B.  A baby is born. A new Adam with God's DNA. Continuing in the vein of head-scratching wonder, the entire New Testament testifies to a man, “Who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Philippians 2: 6-8  He did it.  He didn't have to, but He did.  

Now THIS is a God I can sink my teeth into. I know, that's a little crass. Let me try again.  Jesus is sooo compelling! He finally makes sense of this world, because He reveals another Kingdom that this world was intended to be like – with values that are the antithesis of this world's values. Love and justice are Jesus' prime movers. Before He left, He gave His followers their marching orders - to finish His Father's work until He returned to restore all things – as intended in Plan A, and He promised never to leave us or forsake us. His Holy Spirit is present, available... waiting on us!    

So! How could we have gotten it so wrong? And why do we still, when we say we know Jesus?   Stearns writes that, “After encountering Jesus you can't just go back to your old life. That is not an option. It changes everything.” Well . . . . does it? I know!. . . .I know the answer, because I know me!  But we HAVE HIS WORD, and by the grace of God that Word is sinking deeper into me and becoming so real, so pointed, so . . . . I don't know how to finish this except to ask, “Are you feeling anything akin?”              Kristen White

Wake up!   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03YxgFrDreg

 

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