God is All-Powerful

God is All-Powerful

Today we focus on one of God's attributes:  He is all-powerful. NOTHING is impossible for God!  I remember being a teenager in my youth group, and kids joking around about this truth.  "Well, could God make a rock so heavy that He couldn't lift it?"  one of them asked.  While it was fun to imagine improbable scenarios, it also spoke to our lack of spiritual maturity - most of our lives were relatively simple and stress-free in those days, and focusing on God's limitless power wasn't fueled by a desperate need to know that it was true.  Living life changes that.  

Wondering if I could survive the pain of loss through miscarriage changed that.  Trying to survive divorce and rebuild a life with my children changed that.   My awareness of the enormous responsibility of parenting compared to my lack of ability or understanding changed that.  For some, devastating health issues in their life or that of loved ones changed that.  For others, growing knowledge of man's inhumanity to man, and our seeming powerlessness to turn the tide changed that.  Many things cause us to turn our searching, aching hearts and minds to God, but perhaps none so much as the realization of our limitations.

As Jeremiah prays to God in the face of an enemy army's conquest of Israel, he cries out "Ah, Lord God!  Behold, You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and outstretched arm.  There is nothing too hard for You."  (Jer 32:17)  Affirming this truth, God answers with "Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh.  Is there anything too hard for Me?" (Jer 32:26) 

These statements present different views of the same truth - NOTHING is impossible for God!  He is capable of doing anything - nothing is too 'hard' for Him.  This gives me great comfort - I will never find myself in a situation that God cannot handle.  No matter how inadequate I am, or think I am, or feel that I am - no matter how overwhelmed or powerless - HE remains all-powerful.  I can trust Him, and count on Him.  What blessed peace that brings me.  God can handle me and my life.

However, this does not mean that challenges won't come.  We live in a fallen world, where people have free will.  Many times we use our freedom in ways that cause each other pain.  Nature functions fairly consistently most of the time, but natural disasters do occur.   And we are mortal - it is appointed unto man once to die.  Everyone we love will eventually be lost to us on this earth, by their death or ours.  None of this contradicts the fact that God is all-powerful.  

When looking at the attributes of God, we must remember that He is all things at all times, in perfect harmony with Himself.  He is not only powerful, or only knowledgeable, or only love, or only righteous in judgement - as if His attributes function independent of each other.  He is all that He is at all times.  He also is the only Being with true perspective.  

Consider a man who is fit to be tied because his storage unit has been padlocked due to lack of payment.  He is outraged by this!  He was planning to sell some items that are IN that storage unit in order to be able to pay his bills.  He thinks the manager of the storage units acted impulsively, without giving him time to make his account right.  In his perspective, this is an unjust and devastating situation.  Now consider trying to explain to a person in a third world country what a storage unit is:  a place to hold the excess things one owns that cannot fit in his home.  Suddenly the perspective changes.  This person hopes to find enough food to feed his wife and children that day...that is his unjust and devastating situation.

Many times we think that God should go around 'making things right' simply because He has the power to do so.  We are limited in our perspective;  instead of asking "Why doesn't God DO something?", a better question may be "What would God have me do about this?".  Or "What do You want me to learn through this, God?"  Or "I don't know WHAT to do, nor HOW to do it!  Please use Your power to lead me, and to enable me to follow through on Your leading."

God challenges Jeremiah with "Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know."  (Jer 33:3)  Paul declares that God "is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think"!  (Eph 3:20)  I dare say that our real need is to lift our eyes to the heavens and ask God to do what HE knows is best, rather than tell Him what we hope He will do.  My prayers are often pitiful, wordy requests for my will to be done . . . 

What if we prayed throughout the rest of December for God to go ahead and do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, and to show us great and mighty things which we do not know?!!!  Maybe He'll show me a different approach to take in that relationship that is marked by conflict.  Maybe He'll lead you to participate in a ministry that you've always felt ill-equipped for.  Maybe He'll prompt us to go next door and actually have a conversation with our neighbor, seeking genuinely to get to know them, in order to serve them with God's love.  

Paul also writes, in Romans 8:31 "What shall we say to these things?  If God is for us, who can be against us?"  Oh Father - surprise us with Your power and majesty - not for our entertainment, but to energize and strengthen our faith, as well as our resolve to stand up and say "Here I am, Lord; use me!"  We pray for this Christmas season to be marked by Your power in us this year.  Help us to live boldly because You are all-powerful; to step beyond our comfort-zones, our self-imposed limitations and even our loved ones' expectations.  Show Yourself strong and mighty in Your children as we seek to glorify and obey You.

Link to kid's post:  http://elizabethtreger1.blogspot.com/2014/12/god-is-all-powerful-today-we-are-going.html