Tuesday, November 13, 2018

when you've seen what God can do

Today in the One Year Bible, we read from Hebrews 11:17-31. Paul tells us that Abraham was thinking that God would simply raise Isaac from the dead if He let him go ahead and sacrifice him on the mountain. And that's very interesting, considering that's exactly what God DID do when the situation was reversed: when God sent HIS son to be sacrificed. He did exactly what Abraham predicted and raised Jesus from the dead.

But what's also interesting is that when Jesus came to Mary and Martha's house, and Lazarus was already dead, they both said to Him, "If You had been here, he would not have died." They had seen what He could do. They knew how important life was to Him, and how much He loved His friends.

When you've spent time with God, you learn to expect things from Him, based on Who He is. If He asks you to sacrifice your son, you expect Him to not only be willing but ABLE to simply bring him back to life. If your brother is dying, and it takes Jesus awhile to get to you, you know that He could have saved him... and WOULD have... if He'd gotten there sooner.

And yet.

He still surprises us. Even though we come to expect Him to care, to love, and to be able to do anything... we simply can't predict what He'll do because He is always operating on a whole different level than we are. We can't guess His next move, because it's never A or B. It's something above A and B and includes both but isn't either one.

God, thank You for being a God that we can trust... but that we can't predict.