There’s something funny about doctrinal statements. We write them, quote them, and believe them because they’re supposed to be based on the unchanging Word of God. Why, then, if they are so rock-solid, are there so many different ones? Why do genuine believers have so many differences (albeit in small ways)? Why didn’t God just spell it out for us in His unchanging Word? “Turn to Hezekiah 16:4 for a concise doctrinal statement…”
Or do we really have as good of a grasp on dogmatic doctrine as we claim to have? Am I the only one who sometimes wrestles with issues late at night? Free will versus predestination… whether Christ was fully man and fully God or if and how much He emptied Himself of His deity when He became a man… what the filling of the Spirit means… law versus grace….
Oh, don’t worry. I’ll solve some problem today, enough to give me peace, but a new problem will crop up tomorrow. I’ll be back in the shower, hogging all the hot water, while my brain tries to figure out the complexities of God.
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Is. 55:8-9).
It’s good to wrestle with God in our minds. By doing it, we acknowledge that He is God and we are not, but that we’re striving to know Him. But the danger comes in thinking that our thoughts should reign supreme. God’s ways don’t need our thoughts. He is quite capable of doing His work in His way, sometimes with methods that seem to contradict our tidy systems.
“For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it” (Is. 55:10-11).
Lord, I need wisdom. I need wisdom to know You personally, not just in my head. I need wisdom to know how to show Your love to others, even when I don’t agree. I need wisdom to know what things I need to fight for, and which things I need to forgive. Lord, thank You for filling my mind with Your mind, and by doing, superseding all my thoughts and using me in spite of them.
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