God is not in the business of testing our credulity. That is the hobby of fanciful human beings, acting on shreds of information to prognosticate the future in this way or that way, and to conclude with a scenario that might be possible – in the belief that with God, all things are possible. The problem, of course, is that God does not do all things, even though he could if he would. He does only that he determines to do. He does not do all that he is capable of doing. Mankind is not positioned to cope with all that perfection. God is not contradictory, but adapts to the situations mankind creates, as a parent may adapt to the limits of the child. He would make of Moses a nation in place of Israel. Moses, rightly, refused the proposal. God then proceeded with the original plan, as did Moses. Who changed in the review of options? Moses changed, in that he would proceed following this encounter with God without the personal sympathy and complaint for dealing with a recalcitrant people. God could achieve purpose with Moses’ family, as he could with Israel’s family. God solves problems in various ways. Mankind would do well to learn that flexibility for self, for family, for business, for government – for whatever. In my lifetime I have observed various government programs that would have worked, but the will on the part of officials or the public did not permit them to work. Marriages that would have thrived on the husband’s perceptions, or the wife’s, fail because the husband and wife refused to make either position work, or to design a third pattern from the better of the two independents. Rigidities that refuse solutions that one, or a group or even a majority may not prefer, have taken the life of a career, a family, a business, a nation – even a church. The dynamics of life contexts range through a variety of scenarios. God is able to help us through the brambles of going or not going, of believing or not believing, of immediacy or long range, of truth and fiction. We ought to seek solutions and make them work. That is the secret of winning. Winning is in the affirmations of right.
How does God work with mankind? He remembers that we are dust, that we are hobbled by some forceful influences, that we have only a corner of knowledge even in nature, with faith glimpses of that which is eternal and lasting. From God’s point of view the human situation might be interpreted as pitiful, ending in death. He does not take that stance, but empowers us to some magnificent achievements, and life possibilities – if, in humility and faith, we can seize upon those possibilities. God’s participation with persons, in a loving context, is claimed through faith, work, prayer, righteousness, obedience – to known spiritual truth. Here is dignity. Like a parent with a child, God assists in the factors he expects mankind to adopt for meaning, accomplishment, direction and success – as he, God, perceives human success. That success is measured more in the quality of life than the length of it.
The door to success, as God has it, is personal. It is in the individual. When that is understood, everything is different than if only humanism is recognized. Months after his death, Steve Jobs the genius of the Apple Corporation, has been a continuing news item. A man who was so contradictory, so difficult to get along with, so arrogant and rebellious as to defy even modest requirements for citizens, so resistant of factors he did not originate that he refused to bathe and could smell like a billy goat. He evaded doctors for surgery on the discovery of a tumor – surgery that would have saved his life. At last he surrendered to surgeons. By then it was too late. So it was that one of the most creative and successful businessmen the world has ever known died prematurely. Only as he approached death did he acknowledge that there may be a God. When he felt his old self, he said he just wasn’t sure. His monumental success in the business world now means nothing – to him. As death pressed in on him, he seemed like a man in a strange city, at night, wandering about for direction. His genius failed him at the end – or so it appears. Who knows? God doesn’t utilize Jobs’ computers to do anything he wants to do. He does take seriously the needs of imperfect mankind – noted by a devout prophet as no more important than the dew that may have touched the metal on a scale and not significant so to wipe off in measuring weights. God’s scope is that great. To address the matter of worth for us, Christ came with the redemptive plan that restores worth to humankind in the God’s life context. He offers faith concepts for what is missing for mortals. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020