LET GOD BE GOD
Imagine telling someone, “Let God be God.” You’re likely to get a response describing how things would imaginably be better if God had intervened to change outcomes. Most of us are familiar with Christian comebacks and one-liners from well-meaning people. Most of the time, we want to believe that these are not airy axioms and the people who say it do so from personal experience of God's goodness. After all, we are taught to encourage and strengthen each other so we don't lose hope when the going gets tough. So invariably, we find ourselves saying things like, “This too shall pass”, “God won’t give you more than you can handle”, or "In all things, God works for the good of those who love Him".
To be sure, some of the clichés are questionable, some are half-truths, and some are half Bible quotes. To those on the receiving end who are hurting or struggling, these glib sayings seem to lay the blame on them for feeling down. Perhaps if they had done a better job in digesting these fast-acting antidotes, they would snap out of it and just roll with the punches.
There is no doubt that we are living in precarious times today and the severe disruptions of an ongoing pandemic is something that mankind has never seen before. But we do have biblical precedents for how God came through for His people in extraordinary ways amidst extraordinary circumstances.
In fact, God Himself had said some things that seemed rather confounding to the people of Judah during a time when it seemed as though He was either uninvolved, distant or absent. Not much different from the idols in Judah during that time.
Then, we see in Isaiah 55: 8-9 that, out of the blue, God revealed, “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.”
Essentially, what God is saying that He knows how to be God better than we think. But do we know how to let God be God?
Let’s look at three important truths:
GOD’S THOUGHTS AND WAYS ARE UNMATCHED
He’s not just any god but a living God. Think incomparable, unsurpassed, unrivaled, matchless. God has no peers. We can confidently use these descriptions of God and know that no one and nothing is His equal. There’s no end of the road for Him, no deadlocks He could not break, nothing He has not seen.
When He said His thoughts and His ways are higher than ours, He meant it’s immeasurable. It’s futile to out-think a living God: you will only lose sleep.
After all, how do you out-think a God who has a track record for doing the inconceivable, exceeding the impossible and overturning the insurmountable? In the take-over of Jericho, God’s military strategy did not involve chanting menacing battle cries but a silent march seven times around the walls of Jericho before it collapsed. Jesus also recruited unlikely characters to be His disciples. There was Paul, who earlier carried out terroristic acts against the Jews, and Peter, who was inclined to blow hot and cold in his friendship with Jesus. The list goes on.
Romans 11:13 reminds us: “How great God’s riches and wisdom and knowledge! How impossible it is for us to understand His decisions and His ways!”
But note what God has said about the potency of His word: “so is My word that out from My mouth: it will not return to Me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” (Isaiah 55:11)
As such, we can be confident that God never speaks empty words, and He never makes empty promises.
GOD’S PURPOSE WILL BE ACCOMPLISHED
The Bible is full of assurances and evidence that God’s ultimate purpose will always come to past.
“Many are the plans in a person’s heart but it’s the Lord’s purpose that prevails.” (Proverbs 19:21)
“The Lord Almighty has sworn, ‘Surely, as I have planned, so it will be, and as I have purposed, so it will happen.’” (Isaiah 14:24)
Yet we are so often caught up in our own idealised outcomes that we approach God in a more transactional than relational way. We stage our own miracles and wonder why God hasn’t shown up. We want a luxury cruise to save us so others can see how much God loves us and dismiss the humble and weather-beaten sampan (common boat) He has already sent to help us. We think we have to make Him look good. As such, we are often driven by the need to take control of our life narratives and God’s role in it. We even set a timer for Him and give Him tasks to fulfil.
But get this: God is always on time, on point and on target – no matter how long we have waited for our breakthrough, healing or restoration. Don’t waste your time waiting for the one thing you want to happen in your life and neglect your personal growth in other areas during the time of waiting. It could well be that God wants to have a different conversation with you to bring you closer to what He has in mind for you.
THE OUTCOME WILL BE FOR GOD’S GLORY
Isaiah 55:12-13 depict the fulfilment of God’s purpose as a thriving landscape curated with life, grandeur, exuberance and beauty for God’s glory. It’s almost as though He can’t wait to show you this place!
“You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands. Instead of the thorn-bush will grow the juniper, and instead of briers the myrtle will grow. This will be for the Lord’s renown, for an everlasting sign, that will endure for ever.’
This is what you will experience when God’s purpose is fulfilled in your life. You will become the “oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of His splendour.” The outcomes in your situation will bring God glory and honour and many will come to know who is the God in your life.
Let God be God and us be the vessels for His purpose.
Read and declare Isaiah 61:1-3 into your spirit and mind.
This is a summary and reflection based on a virtual BIR Session held on 23 April 2022.
