He’s Up to More
What have you done for me lately? Is this not one of those permeating questions we deal with on a day-to-day basis? Performance is important to a point, but our culture has taken it a step further. Not only is our worth constantly on the line, but if we’re not careful we can dangerously put God on the judgement seat.
I remember mowing the lawns when I was younger. Our lawn mower was on its last leg and wouldn’t hold grass in the bag very well. I had to empty it ever 45 seconds or so it seemed. Mowing the five lawns took about three times as long as it should have. We finally got a new lawn mower, and this thing had a bag like Mary Poppins’ pursue – it held so much grass.
I loved the new mower. However, over time, it too started to hold less and less grass before needing to be emptied. One Saturday in particular stands out to me, I started kicking the bag out of frustration because it wasn’t doing its job up to my expectations.
There was a moment where I stopped and remembered how much I used to love this new mower, and with a snap of a finger I now loathed it due to it not meeting my expectations. I’ve done this with the Lord a time or two too many.
I have expectations as to how I believe God will interact with me. There are countless testimonies of God providing specifically for a need at a particularly crucial point in time –truly Divine providence. These moments lead me to praise, worship, and thanksgiving.
There are yet other times where I’ve felt God has had a “perfect” moment to step into my story and move and He hasn’t. Just as quickly as the praise came before, the doubt came next. Is He actually good? Does He really care about me?
Like the lawn mower, I see that I fall into the trap of wrongfully judging God for how I perceive His “performance” or lack thereof in my life. I flippantly say thanks when things are good and throw a tantrum when they’re not – as if life is only ever about me.
Oh, how I’ve needed to repent of this thinking. God is after something so much bigger than things working out the way we’d like. He knows how susceptible we are to the idols of the world. He allows us to struggle in order to find Him. See, God’s not after you getting the “good life” – He’s after you.
Like the story of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32), there are times where we need to come to the end of ourselves, experience the full disappointment of our choices, and return back to the Lord – not for what we think He’ll give us, but for who He truly is.
It’s God’s desire for you and I to walk in relationship with Him. Yes, He gives good gifts, but those gifts pale in comparison to the surpassing joy of knowing God Himself. So often we follow God for what He can do for us, then kick and scream when His provision doesn’t line up with our desires. The beauty of God’s goodness often lies in the gifts He doesn’t give us. He knows those gifts, though to our minds seem like the thing we need, can be the very thing that take us away from Him.
He loves in the giving, but how much more does He choose love in the holding back. A loving father wants to give his children gifts. Although it pains him to hold back a gift, he does so for our ultimate good. A child could scream and kick and tantrum because their father refused to let them play with the knife, but dad knows better than give them something that could hurt them.
God loves you like this, friend. Would we choose to practice trusting that God’s character is unchanging and ultimately for our good. Out of this posture, we can praise the Lord even in the gifts that are held back from us because we know His plans are for us. Remove God from the judgment seat. Trust in His goodness. He gives good gifts (Matthew 7:11) and He’s up to far more than what we have the ability to see.
