Sunday, November 14, 2021

God is a decision maker

Good day children, Another thought on God. - God makes decisions.  Grandma and I have lived our lives and made decisions, good and bad.  You must also, hope this helps.

God is a decision maker.   He thought about us and about a creation and made a decision.   If you read His story, he stepped back, looked His creation over and pronounced it - Good!.  And as we help you wrestle with life decisions, I think we need to help you understand an important truth: God’s primary will for us individually is the person we become.

The apostle Paul says that God “chose us in [Christ] before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him” (Ephesians 1:4).  We need to help you recognize that God’s primary will for your life is not what career you choose, or where you live, or who you marry, or how much money you’ll make; it’s who you become.  God’s basic plan for your life is that you become a person of excellent character and divine love.  That’s what words like godly and holy actually intend.

Making decisions is an indispensable tool in the formation of excellent character and thus an excellent person.  Our task as parents and grandparents is not just to make good decisions for you, but to help you develop the skill of making good decisions for yourself.  Can you imagine the mess if we always tried to run your life and make your decisions?  We can barely make the decisions we need to run our own lives on some days.  Our desire is that you become a truly good person, like God; able to look at a situation and make a good decision.  We often insist that you make your own decisions.  People of excellent character will, judgment and character get formed no other way.  I believe God also works to develop character this way.  God’s will for your life will often be “You decide.” Sometimes you will ask heaven for direction, and God will say something that amounts to “It’s your choice.” That doesn’t mean God doesn’t care about us. It means that God cares more about your character than your college, your car, or your career — which is what we would expect from a truly loving God or parent.

Don't get me wrong here.  Sometimes God really does have a specific assignment for someone, perhaps you — like Moses taking on Pharaoh —and God is willing to make this clear.  Read Paul’s description of his clarification meeting with God in Acts 9 illustrated below in this famous painting.  When the burning bush is necessary, the burning bush will be there.  But much of the time, wisdom itself will help you know the right course — if there actually is a "right" choice — in these big decisions.  A lack of divine guidance regarding which option to choose does not mean either God or you have failed.  Very often it is just the opposite: God knows you grow more from having to make a decision than if you were to get direct guidance from heaven that would prevent you from growing at all.



God is not surprised!

 

Good day children, Some thoughts on God.

There are a lot of people who have a lot of ideas about who God is, and most of these people believe they are right and you should agree with them.  I would like to share with you my thoughts about God, and I, like all these other people, am not completely correct.  You must understand that God is not that simple a personality or fellow being.  And yet He is a very close fellow being.  Much closer than most of us want to think about; He overshadowed the virgin Mary and Jesus, the God/Man was created, same DNA types.  God has emotions, love is  His predominate one, but He has the whole range (at least) that we have.  And He wants to have a very personal loving relationship with you.

To begin my exploration with you of who God is I would like to present some thoughts I have about Him.  I have spent much of my life thinking about Him and while not a preacher, believe I do know Him quite well.  First, this little picture is a start, I found it on the 'Verse for the Day' app and it struck home to me. Your storm might be someone else's rescue, God has a lot of things going on all the time and he is willing to let you help with His work.

God wants to save us from our sins, we can discuss all that later, but He does not remove us from this world or its problems.  We will have storms, but He is with us and loves us, and cares that we survive the storms and actually grow more mature from all those storm experiences.  God wants us to learn to weather the storms, we are free creatures and will be involved in this world’s storms, some caused by our own decisions.

So, my first impression of God, that I always share with Grandma is, God is never surprised.  Ever!  He already knows that we will be in difficult storms but wants us to lean to trust Him to help us because He loves us.  We have the free will to decide to trust God and work with Him or not.  Just remember He cares!  Jerimiah 29:11 is a good reminder of this: “11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

Even when we are surprised, God is not, and He is always thinking of you, personally.