Monday Morning Music Ministry

9-7-26

There is a phrase you hear in the Christian community these days – every generation seems to have its holy clichés – “It’s a God thing.” More than not, the trope is employed when something unfortunate is explained or excused as if to look for a silver lining. Or it is said on the other hand to describe a fortunate outcome, a happy coincidence.

It’s a God thing.

I have always pushed back against this saying, especially when it is used as a meme: a sloppy catch-phrase that masquerades as an intentional thought. Oh, I realize that many things in life are “God things,” but… not everything. Good things/God things. But some things are the devil’s things. Satan adopts the disguise of an “angel of light,” we are told in Scripture. Especially in the End Times, the devil will “deceive the saints”; that is, even believers will be fooled.

Insurance companies call disasters “Acts of God.”

It is not only insurers who call floods and hurricanes “acts of God.” Many folks employ that label and, applying an illogical extension, analyze life’s challenges and ask “Why do bad things happen to good people?” If they are the same people who say “It’s a God thing” it actually suggests that they want to be God’s boss – in the sense of defining His job description and deciding what is a “bad” thing and even judging who are “good” people.

(Forgive the tangent: why don’t people call good things “Acts of God”? Like, when a hurricane doesn’t hit; when you arrive somewhere without an accident? When you have not caught a virus? Scripture does tell us that God is a jealous God…)

God is sovereign – part of His actual job description after all – and we must be careful when we assign what is, and what is not, a “God thing.” And we should be even more careful not to call something His plan, His “thing,” only when it fulfills our own wish-list. We know what we want… but God knows what we need.

Lincoln said, It is not as important that God be on our side as that we be on God’s side.

The Lord Who counts every hair on the heads of His children also knows the thoughts that emanate below that hair, so to speak. “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways” (Isaiah 55:8). The Bible overflows with nearly uncountable examples of trials, as men and women regard them… that were transformed into blessings. Of crises… that eventually led to triumphs. Of challenges… whose resolutions resulted in salvation.

The thief on the cross turns to his side and acknowledges Jesus Who hangs next to him… and is told that “today you will be with me in Paradise.” Three men resisted bowing down to King Nebuchadnezzar… and survived the fiery furnace. The Book of Job is an account of his misery and hard luck (to put it mildly). The core of the book however is, especially in Chapter 38, a reminder of God’s overarching wisdom and care for Job… and us.

Even Jesus’s Disciples, who lived with the Savior for more than three years and witnessed supernal teaching and miracles, did not understand everything He said. “And they understood none of these things… neither knew they the things which were spoken”(Luke 18:34). Yet it was a “God thing” that Jesus asked them to accept: His torture and death would not have been on their natural wish-list. Nor, likely, ours.

Johann Sebastian Bach wrote a cantata that was one of his most poignant. In the face of contemplation of death (it was a funeral piece) it was a profound musical sermon about trust in God. Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit – God’s Timing Is Always the Best Timing. That is, we trust not only God’s timing but the circumstances, the context, our expectations even in the face of prayer and earnest appeals. He acts; we do not dictate to Him.

All “God things” are His to decide, and our duty is to trust.

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Click: ‘Tis So Sweet To Trust in Jesus

8-12-19

Conversation in the doctor’s waiting room. A woman next to me said, after reeling off her worries, “… but as the Bible says, God never gives us more than we can handle.”

Me: “You know, the Bible does not say that.”

“It doesn’t? I’m sure it does!”

Fortune cookies, yes. Greeting cards, yes. Even sermons, yes. But the Bible – prophets, poets, kings, disciples, Jesus? – no.

In fact, if we think about it, troubles and sickness and problems usually are attacks from the devil, or the results of our own folly… but not “sent” by God. He doesn’t “give” us more than we can handle. That is not how He works. He “gives” us hope. And strength. And faith. And wisdom. And, yes, deliverance.

But He does not visit us with bad things, even temptations. That’s in the devil’s job description, not God’s.

A proper understanding of this can change our lives. We should be free of the pagan superstition that God pushes us to the edge all the time. We are His children, and He is not a child abuser.

He did not tempt Jesus in the wilderness. That was Satan.

Let’s dig deeper into these ideas about challenges and God. I say He does not “give” junk to us. The world will ask, “If He is a loving God, then why doesn’t He prevent those problems?” A question that seems logical. He could have plucked Jesus from the cross. He could have put out the fire in the furnace before the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar ordered Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to be tossed therein. The “valley of the shadow of death”? Why didn’t God promise simply to keep us away from the cursed valley?

Well, those actions are not in God’s job description.

He never promised us a trouble-free life. Some people never quite understand that! In fact, it is guaranteed that troubles will come our way… and the more Jesus there is in our hearts, the more the devil will attack. Stone cold, that. So what does God promise? Let us re-visit the three examples:
Jesus was on the cross to fulfill God’s plan, and to demonstrate His love for us. He would not interrupt that.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego did not avoid the fire, but were saved in the midst of the fire. Brought through. And manifested the “fourth man” who appeared with them, the pre-incarnate Jesus. Lesson delivered.

Walking though the valley of the shadow of death? God promises to be with us… not to slap us down a detour. We learn (or should learn) trust and faith, because He is with us in those times.

As Andrae Crouch wrote and sang, “I thank Him for the storms He brought me through, For if I’d never had a problem, I wouldn’t know God could solve them… I’d never know what faith in God could do.”

God always “gives” us exactly what we need.

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Click: Through It All