Wrestling with the Sovereign One

"Only if God can say {and do} things that make you struggle will you know that you have met a real God and not a figment of your imagination." ~Tim Keller

Those of you who know me well, know that I love Scripture and that I am passionate about studying it. You know that the reason that I love Scripture so much is because it reveals to me who God is. I believe passionately that Scripture is objective truth, that it is inspired by God...that God has chosen this method to reveal Himself to us. I believe that I can trust it in its entirety and that it's true whether I choose to believe it or not. I also believe that it is my responsibility to submit to it's authority in my life and to submit to the God that is revealed through it.

It has been through the study of Scripture that I have learned to know God and have begun to fall in love with the God that is revealed there. But I want to be brutally honest for a minute. Not everything I read in the Bible fills me with the mushy gushy feelings of love for the God who has pursued me and has redeemed me. There are times that as I am studying Scripture I become quite troubled. I struggle to understand Him and His ways and yes, I sometimes even struggle to like particular aspects about Him. I can feel the resistance in my heart to what the Holy Spirit is showing me about God through Scripture.

I recently heard a statement that went something like this. “We must not think that God does a thing because it’s good and right but rather the thing is good and right because God wills it and works it.” The idea that God does what He wants and that what He does is true and right because He does it, is behind the understanding of everything in Scripture…everything that God does, He does because He chooses to do it and His choices are free from any influence outside Himself. This is a broad comprehension of a Sovereign God by His own nature doing whatever he chooses to do.  And it is this aspect of God's character that causes us to struggle and in some instances, causes people to fall away in disbelief.  

I am deeply troubled by the inclination of my heart to resist this understanding of a sovereign God and to try to change what Scripture says when I don't like what I'm reading. I am tempted to try to come up with an explanation or an interpretation that fits much better with my world view, or I try to reason my way around Scripture. I immediately start to devalue the Scripture or call it into question, or I try to figure out a way to change it's intended meaning to one that fits better with my own opinion or with my society. I'm troubled by my quickness to make a god that will fit better with my own world view and my own understanding of what "good" is, and with my own personal desires rather than by simply trusting God and His Word.

Even in the midst of these inner struggles when I can feel my heart resisting truth and being pulled away to doubt God or to try to change Him, I also feel it being pulled back. It's a struggle in my soul...a struggle to admit that I am a limited, created creature who is obligated to a Creator and Designer who is Sovereign over me and over all of creation. It is a struggle to surrender and submit my will...my ways...my thoughts...my understandings under His and to entrust myself wholly to Him and believe that His Word is true and good. 

I want this. I want to bow my will to Him. I want to love all of Him, regardless of whether I understand Him or even if I agree with Him. In truth I would rather have a God that shakes me rather than one that I can manage because if I can manage Him then, He is not truly God. Can I learn to believe that God, who stands outside of time and space and culture, could possibly know and understand things from a much different perspective than I, who sits inside the limits of time, space, and culture? Can I trust that because of that all-knowing perspective and vantage point that is His and His alone, that all that He orchestrates and all that He ordains is right even if from my limited perspective and understanding it looks wrong?

It is my prayer that God would continue to open my eyes to His goodness, fill my heart with love and devotion for Him, so that I continue to learn to entrust myself to the One who is Sovereign over all.