God is God and I Am Not

 

Habakkuk 1:5 says: Look at the nations and watch and be utterly amazed.

For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe even if you were told.

God is God and I am not.

Yet, I like to think I can figure it all out.

Sometimes when I pray, I lay out the plan of action that would be most efficient for God to take.

Lord, if you’d just help so and so do this or that…

Lord, please help the situation to go this way or that way…

Basically: God, I know you are in control but here’s the best plan, thank you in advance for seeing it my way.

A couple of years ago, my dad’s cancer came back with a vengeance, 

I immediately saw all of the ways God could be glorified if He healed him.

A few months went by and I realized he wouldn’t be healed. 

I suggested that God could take him peacefully, painlessly in his sleep.

When that didn’t happen, it hit me…

God is God and I am not.

Five days of hospice were the worst kind of torture, and I cannot imagine what it was like for my dad.

But…

If I know God—the God of Habakkuk and Esther,

He was working behind the scenes for my dad the same way he was working for me.

When my dad came home from the hospital for hospice, I told God that I didn’t think I would be able to handle watching him die - then I prayed, God, please take him quickly.

But still he suffered.

Eventually I stopped praying altogether because words escaped me completely and my thoughts were muddled and jagged.

All I could manage was “Help him…Help him.” 

Why didn’t He help him?

God is God and I am not.

When it was over, I recognized that, moment by moment, God was with me, giving me strength to do what I had to do to be there for my dad—my dad, who jumped at the chance to help me my entire life. 

Excruciating as it was, I’m so thankful I had the privilege of walking through the valley with him. 

I miss my dad every day. 

But God is so kind. 

I began to realize that He is not just my Savior, my Redeemer…

He is my Father. He is the best Father. 

But didn’t I already know that? 

It wasn’t long after he died, that one of my kids did something that would have made my dad so proud. 

I asked God to tell my dad the story—to pass the news along to him in heaven. 

Then I heard His still small voice remind me, “I’m your Father, tell me.”

Of course. A Father who will never leave me, nor forsake me. 

Joy filled my heart and I told Him the story as if He didn’t know.

God is God and I am not.

Habakkuk ends this way...

Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines,

Though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food,

Though there are no sheep in the pen

And no cattle in the stalls,

Yet I will rejoice in the Lord,

I will be joyful in God my Savior.

The sovereign Lord is my strength;

He makes my feet like the feet of a deer,

He enables me to go on the heights.”

Amen!