The Ways of God預覽

Not Our Ways

Take a moment to consider God: Infinite. Spirit. Dwelling in an unimaginable celestial world. Governing trillions of galaxies and stars. Creating a universe so vast it takes more than thirteen billion light-years for the glimmer of distant stars to reach Earth.

Not only does God know the furthest extent of the vast universe, but He is cognizant of the minutest details of every human being, animal, and plant on Earth. God knows the future, every event still to come. God will bring time to a climactic close at the precise moment He has sovereignly destined. He comprehends every mystery in the universe. He is fully aware of every creature lurking in the depths of the sea, every cosmic activity in the far reaches of the universe, and every interaction of each cell on Earth. Consider also that God knows every sin that every person in history has committed, and He fully intends to execute perfect justice upon every wrongdoer.

Now, imagine the audacity of assuming, or demanding, that God act in ways that make perfect sense to us or in a manner that we, ourselves, would behave. Ponder the hubris required to insist that we will not believe anything God says unless we understand it completely. We can’t grasp what it is like for God to act today while He already knows what will happen tomorrow. We can’t imagine how God can be fully aware of what billions of people are doing and thinking simultaneously. We are exceedingly ignorant of much of what exists in our physical world, yet we assume God, who inhabits a heavenly, spirit domain, should act in ways we understand. We are but creatures of dust. How could we assume the Source of Life would conduct affairs in ways that are logical to us?

Misunderstanding God’s Ways

A god who makes perfect sense to us is no God at all. This is, of course, the absurdity of idol worship. Frail humanity cannot begin to fathom the vastness of God. That is the insanity of carving an idol out of wood and assuming you have captured the likeness of the Almighty.

A.W. Tozer said, “Among the sins to which the human heart is prone, hardly any other is more hateful to God than idolatry, for idolatry is at bottom a libel on His character. The idolatrous heart assumes that God is other than He is—which in itself is a monstrous sin—and substitutes for the true God one made after its own likeness. Always this God will conform to the image of the one who created it and will be base or pure, cruel or kind, according to the moral state of the mind from which it emerges.”

Idols are humanity’s misguided attempt to downsize God to a level they can understand and control.