My question for the last few weeks has been, where is God in His generosity? Sounds like a harsh question for the creator of the universe, but it is a valid question when trudging through the muck of this life. I began walking through and questioning over and over what are you doing God, and goodness, how is what just happened generous!? How is God answering some prayers, and not others, generous? I mean the question needs to start with what is generosity? Webster defines generosity as liberal in giving okay, so to me that means that whomever we deem as generous has something to give and desires to give that which he has freely! That sounds about right! My question now is, why does it seem that God is more generous to some than others? Why does it as least look that way?
So I began to see my own life. I have been praying and praying to understand what God has been doing in my life and why it always seems that doors are closing and that I am waiting in the hallway for one to open. That I am trying to do His will but finding myself on the other side of the door, back in the hallway! It just doesn't make sense! What am I missing here and why am wondering around this hallway--is this my open door--the hallway, who knows!? So God has all these opportunities and does not give them all the time. He has all these doors but keeps them closed--why? Because he is loving and in his love is his generosity! boom! wow! I was talking to some friends yesterday and what came up was God's love--that it is God's love that allows us to walk and fall and stumble and get back up and even walk away from what we know to be true, but it is also God's love that embraces us when we return. That is how is all comes back to love! It is all love-- and there lies his generosity!
So here I am, still trying to understand, trying to box God up like I'm going to sell him at the store! He makes no sense but my desire to make sense out of him is me trying to be in control. Yesterday I was asked to read the story of Abraham and Isaac. The account is pretty mind-blowing when you read it! This man dying to have children, finally is blessed with a child and then asked to sacrifice him--that's tough! I mean why did the child come in the first place if they were gonna go away! But yet again the wisdom of God is beyond me! Anyway I read on and what I found is that Abraham did as he was told and was willing to sacrifice his only son. And when he was binding his son down to the wood, even though Isaac questioned his father, he trusted his father so much that even if death was where Isaac was headed, he knew that that would be the will of God for him. This story was so filled with a faith and trust that it blew my mind.
First Abraham was so willing to do what he was told. He was willing to let go of what he loved for love itself. He was willing to trust that what was given to him was gift and that God taking it would be gift as well. As for Isaac, it was the act of faith that he had to not fight with his father, to not argue but trust that whatever Abraham was doing to him, would be for his best interest, and that yet again he trusted his father with his own life! Interesting that both Isaac and Abraham were trusting a father and had to entrust their lives in their hands!!!
So as the story goes, their acts of trust and faith in the one that held their lives in their hands brought about a blessing! That both willfully agreed to do what they were told and for that they were blessed. The thing that dawned on me is that they did not do any of the above for a prize or agenda! They did what they did so as to do the father's will! That was the motive. Their was no deal that God made with Abraham, that if you do this, I will give you this. God asked and they responded, and in God's generosity and love, he stopped all of it from happening! He had a bigger plan that both Abraham and Isaac could not see and well did not allow them to see. God truly wants to see how far you will push for him! He wants to test where your heart truly lies...in this life or in His!
So where is generosity in all this? Well as I reflected more, I found that God's generosity came in different ways in my life. In all humility I admit that I was thinking that God's generosity was getting what I asked for. That is not it all. I wanted to see, what I wanted to see. That God's generosity lies in his fatherhood and in his fatherhood is protection, love and a foresight that I do not have. He would rather I learn a lesson, than gain a great loss. He would rather my heart be hurt than broken! He knows what he is doing and sometimes i think he doesn't and that I know better than he. Who am I to question Him and how he does what he does.
It's funny because people who know me have heard me say recently that the scripture about the generous landowner annoys me! -
These last ones worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us, who bore the day’s burden and the heat. He said to one of them in reply, ‘My friend, I am not cheating you. Did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage?Take what is yours and go. What if I wish to give this last one the same as you?[Or] am I not free to do as I wish with my own money? Are you envious because I am generous?’Thus, the last will be first, and the first will be last" (Mt 20:12-16)
What I am seeing differently today from this scripture that usually brings about the words unfair and annoyed is that God's generosity is not about getting what i want, God's generosity is first, different for everyone according to what they are going through! Also when I read that line, am I not free to do what I want with my money--I think now, yes you are Lord and the fact is, that person may need that money sooner than me--they may need a grace and a blessing that I may not need or can continue to live without because of my circumstances!!
Where are you Lord--you are always there! I just forget that sometimes the way I want to see you is not the way that you are showing your face. That the way you do things do not always look like the way that i think they need to. Or as I put it to some friends yesterday, I get to the climax of the book, things aren't looking to good and i stop reading! The fact is we need to allow God to work and know and remember that just because something looks one way, it does not mean it is that way! Sometimes God allows us to only see a few steps in front of us--and why is that generous, well because if I saw more I may not be present to those few steps. The fact is I can't get to the top without the few steps in front of me. They are as important as the steps after them. I am realizing that God is generous when he withholds the things I think I need or want--knowing that He sees what I do not, he knows what I do not and he understands what I do not. He uses everything to bring us to this faith that Abraham had and he knows that the sacrifice will not be easy but he asking for your trust that although you do not see, that you may trust in the one who does see all.
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