The Weekly Encourager – January 14, 2015 – Don't Tell God What to Do!

Have you ever asked God for a specific solution to a problem? I know I have, many times. How was that prayer answered? In my experience, sometimes God does exactly what I wanted in the situation, but other times, He does exactly the reverse! Or He uses a different method to achieve the same result, a method which I never saw coming. Or, He moves in a different way to achieve a far better result, above what I could even ask or imagine!

I am reminded of one Christmas when I was about five or six years old, and I had asked my parents for a locket necklace. What I wanted was a Polly Pocket, which was a colorful plastic egg-shaped contraption containing a little doll. Very kid-like, trendy, and girly. What Dad chose for me instead was a beautiful delicate lady's locket made of real gold on a lovely chain. Photos show me wearing this in grade school. I still have it and it's still in style, and it always will be. Dad knew I would have tired of the Polly Pocket in a year or two, or it would have been broken, and he was right. As usual, he chose to give a quality gift rather than junk.

After Christmas this year, Pastor Paul Wolfe preached from Matthew 2 about what happened after Jesus was born. After the angels, shepherds, and wise men departed, did Jesus move into a golden palace to begin His reign on earth with everyone happy to see Him in a position of power? No, He and His family were forced to flee, due to Herod's evil slaying of all Hebrew boys aged two and under. The sermon title was “The Attempted Assassination of the Messiah.” The baby Jesus' early years were tumultuous, yet God was at work the whole time, protecting His anointed one, fulfilling prophecies from hundreds of years before. Evil is evident, but God still rules. His Son, and all His children, may be persecuted, yet they will be preserved. “His banner over me is love.”

Pastor Paul shared the following quote from John Calvin's commentary on the Matthew passage:

“We are here taught, that God has more than one way of preserving his own people. Sometimes he makes astonishing displays of his power; while at other times he employs dark coverings or shadows, from which feeble rays of it escape. This wonderful method of preserving the Son of God under the cross teaches us, that they act improperly who prescribe to God a fixed plan of action. Let us permit him to advance our salvation by a diversity of methods; and let us not refuse to be humbled, that he may more abundantly display his glory. Above all, let us never avoid the cross, by which the Son of God himself was trained from his earliest infancy. This flight is a part of the foolishness of the cross, but it surpasses all the wisdom of the world. That he may appear at his own time as the Savior of Judea, he is compelled to flee from it, and is nourished by Egypt, from which nothing but what was destructive to the Church of God had ever proceeded. Who would not have regarded with amazement such an unexpected work of God?” - John Calvin

God's thoughts and ways are higher than mine, and I need to remember that as I pray. Far better for me to spend most of my prayer time praising God for His intelligence, power, goodness, mercy, and love, than in prescribing particular plans for how I think things should be done.

God is God, and He's the Man with a Plan. He sees far into the future, and superintends all of history, of which my little life is only one small part. He is the Loving Father who gives gold when we ask for plastic. Lord, teach me humility and faith.

God is faithful,

The Calvin quote comes from his commentary on Matthew (vol. 16 in Calvin’s Commentaries, p. 155).