What Almighty Cannot Do by Chris White

“Can you find out the deep things of God? Can you find out the limit of the Almighty?”

                                                    (Job 11:7)

God is referred to as almighty over 300 times in the Old Testament.  While this should certainly steer our hearts towards awe and reverence, we should also be reminded that He who holds all divine power is Himself a loving Father.  As I was reflecting on God’s divine power,  I was reminded of an exercise we all had to do in theology class during ministerial training.  We had to list all the things God almighty cannot do (I came up with 4, but there were many more):

1.      God can’t lie or be unfaithful.  This is a contradiction of His character and heart.

2.      God can’t do the logically inconsistent (no rocks so big He can’t lift them or create a shade of black that looks white.)

3.      God cannot be limited by our limitations—He has infinite possibilities of creativity and the laws of the universe (which we only faintly understand) may be more flexible than we realize.

4.      God cannot be unjust.  His justice is a reflection of His Holiness and thus to violate this would be to violate His very self.

All these things are comforting mostly in the sense that they make a single statement that God is not like we are.  We do all these things with the greatest of ease and we can be thankful that God would not do any of them.  But there is a sense in which the “almightiness” of God is of great comfort to us.  This is found in Romans 8:28 where we read “for those who love God, all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose.”  We know in our heart of hearts, no evil, no problem, no sin, no power is so great that God is overcome and unable to bring His good plan for our lives to fruition.  Nothing shall keep us from the love of God because He is almighty.  Keep that close to your heart today.

Where We Must Not Look by Chris White

 ^“The LORD said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him, “Now lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward; for all the land which you see, I will give it to you and to your descendants forever.”  Genesis 13:14-15

The Lord had brought Abraham and Lot into great prosperity; so much so that the two of them needed to separate because the land could no longer support both of them living in the same place at the same time.  It is an interesting exchange that goes on between them.  The elder defers to the younger, the younger gets what he wants and heads straight into moral ruin, the elder trusts in providence and ends up receiving Canaan which was his destiny in the first place.  One trusts what he sees and goes to destruction, the other trusts in God’s directing hand and receives the Promised Land.  But I also find the words of the Lord quite instructive in this setting.  Do you notice where the Lord tells Abraham to direct his sight?  He tells him to look to what is right in front of him for that will be the family inheritance forever.  How often we want to look ahead, or as we age, more often behind us to our past because somehow those were better days (at least we are certain they turned out for us alright).  But I have a certainty in my soul that the Lord desires that we all learn to look and live in the present.  The present is what He is doing now in our lives.  The past brought us here but that is finished.  The future will eventually become the present, but it is always ahead of us.  The present is a moment of learning and struggle that prepares us for what lies ahead.  Our job is to live and learn the present time in a skillful manner.  What folly there is in constantly looking so far ahead as to miss the joys of what the Lord is doing now.

When the Soul is Dry by Chris White

^“And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”   James 1:4

I’ve heard the drought has gotten so bad in Texas that the Baptists are starting to baptize by sprinkling, the Methodists are using wet-wipes, the Presbyterians are giving out rain-checks, and the Catholics are praying for the wine to turn back into water.  Now that is what I call pretty darn dry!  Have you ever gone through a spiritual drought in your own life?  If you haven’t yet chances are you will in due time.  Back in the early days of the Christian faith believers called this phenomena acidie or “the demon of the noon-day sun”.  It’s the idea of the soul languishing in the heat with no relief in sight.  In this case heat is a metaphor for the protracted trial, a besetting sin that keeps hanging on, a sense of depression, even an indifference towards the things of God.  I think it is interesting that while this situation is certainly implied in scripture, there is not a comprehensive block of teaching in any one place about what to do about it.  I would suggest that this is so at least in part because such times are not entirely unhealthy and may actually be to our benefit.  The ‘tree planted by steams of water’ is never thirsty but usually has a very shallow root system and may actually become weakened structurally by too rapid of growth.  The tree that lives on rainwater alone gets distressed in some years but also sinks much deeper roots making it more stable.  Another cause of these drought times is testing by God.  When I think of Job’s testing, he wasn’t even let in on the reason why.  That was a conversation between God and the devil that left him completely out.  It was a horribly difficult situation and tested Job to the breaking point, but his faith was proven to be real in the process.  Joseph too went through the desert experience first a slave, then a prisoner and finally a prime minister!  His testing had to have made him feel forgotten and God forsaken at the time and yet it prepared him for a greater work that could not be done with a huge ego.  This to say that if you find yourself fighting the noon-day demon hang on to the Lord no matter how you feel, do what’s right in His eyes, and entrust your soul to his loving care day to day.  You are here and in this place for a good purpose though not readily understood.  In the end though you will find God’s grace to be greater than all you have endured.  May His Rain be in your forecast!