July 10, 2022

Luke 8: 25 (NIV)
“Where is your faith?” he asked his disciples.

God’s strength is perfected in man’s weakness. That is a lesson our eyes will never learn.*

The part of Jesus that was human surely had moments of discouragement when he looked at the raw material he had to work with. Would it have been worse if his disciples were deliberately obtuse than if they were just dense? What about his followers today? How often do we go along on our merry, misinformed way?

I have always pictured God shaking his head in despair as we stumble around in our attempts to fulfill his commission to go into all the world. But just maybe that’s not his attitude at all. When he left the world in our human hands, he knew that we were weak and shallow and sinful. Yes, we are all he has to work with but that was his plan – not just something he has resigned himself to live with. His plan.

I don’t claim to know God’s actual attitude. Maybe he doesn’t have one. But he is love so perhaps that’s all he sees when he looks at us. Not failure. Not indifference. Does that make him an indulgent Father? Perhaps. Patient? Yes, the Old Testament abounds with examples of his patience. But not limitless patience.

In his sermon in Athens, Paul said, “For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed.” (Acts 17: 31) For us who are his followers, made righteous through the blood of this man God has appointed, justice is nothing to fear. God will not see that we are inept, inadequate, faithless, and defiant. He will see nothing but love.

The reasons why God created the world and placed human beings in its midst lie deep within the mystery of God’s being and are beyond human comprehension.*