Guidelines For Living

Guest (Male): Take a break from your busy schedule and join Harold Salela for Guidelines for Living.

Harold Sala: One of the most important things you can ever learn about God is that God is God. Well, that's not very profound, you may think, but it is really and here is why. Not knowing God, we assume that he is a kind of glorified human and therefore try to understand him just as you would another person. Now, to say that God is God isn't to say for a moment that he is not a person with intelligence, will, and emotions. He is that plus an infinite amount more. He is also one who can be known, which means that God is not a force, the prime mover of the universe or an abstract power way out there, wherever that may be.

To say that God is God is to make a powerful assertion which takes you above the level of humanity, yes, rising to the supernatural. Therefore, we should assume that in so many ways God is different from human beings that we know. God never changes. He has neither beginning nor end. He never grows weary or becomes bored or frustrated. He's faithful, too. What God says he will do. It may take him some time, perhaps even a long, long time, and you may get pretty restless waiting for him to come through, but he will eventually. I've often been quoted as saying God is seldom early, but he is never late.

A man who spent a lifetime walking with the Lord, who was perhaps closer to God than any man in his day, Samuel the Prophet wrote He who is the glory of Israel does not lie or change his mind, for he is not a man that he should change his mind. This is one of the reasons why it's hard for some to understand him. God is different from us. He's never in a hurry, but we often are. He always keeps his word, but often we don't. He just operates on a different logic level and that's why it's tough at times.

God himself told us this a long time ago. You'll find these words in Isaiah 55 verses 8 and 9. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. God is also different from us in that he has infinite patience and compassion. He understands when we wouldn't even try. Have you never read a newspaper account of some terrible situation where someone was brutal to another, perhaps a child or an innocent victim, and you thought if I were God, I'd strike that guy dead?

Sure, you would have. So would I, but God didn't. Why? Is God soft on justice? Well, some have thought so. Even those who were spiritual people or prophets I'm thinking of Habakkuk, the man who wrote one of the Old Testament books who faced this very issue and cried out How long, oh Lord, must I call for help but you don't listen? Why do you tolerate wrong? God answered him and he began to realize that there was a limit when justice follows. There's one thought I want to leave with you. Let God be God. Rest in the fact that he is sovereign, that he knows the future, and therefore if you are his child you can rest in the confidence he is fully in control of your life and the world in which you live.

The more you know of his word and his ways, the more confident you will be of his ability to keep you, to watch over your life. No child of God would ever question the ways of God if he could see the whole picture. Now we know in part, but eventually we will know the whole story.

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