In the past 10 years or so I find I wake up in the night for a bit. My go-to is a quick trip to the bathroom, and then lying in bed thinking, praying, sometimes reading, even writing.
As I was praying for people and various issues I asked about a particular thing (can't remember what it was to be honest) and found myself about to pray "Please be faithful" as if the Source of faith for our very salvation needs to be reminded! HA!
God will not "forget to be faithful", never has, never will. Now we humans on the other hand do. We forget Whose we are, and we forget or at times blatantly act and react unfaithfully, even in flat-out rebellion towards Him, His Word, what we know He has told us to do and/or how.
Isn't it both understandable but also easy and cheap to deny the Lord in judging (MIS-judging) Him to be like we are? Of course.
So we pray and when He apparently says "Wait" or even "No" and our prayer isn't answered when or how we wanted, or even never answered some who rely purely on intellectual logic proclaim either He doesn't exist or isn't good or worthy to believe in and follow.
Tozer quoted the early Lutherans as saying "Faith is a perturbing thing". At times it indeed is.
Not getting our way doesn't mean God doesn't hear, doesn't care or doesn't know what we need.
"Has God forgotten to be gracious?" asks the Asaph, psalmist of Ps. 77. The idea there is "Of course He hasn't"!
Allegorical or not, the Book of Revelation tells us when Jesus returns "Then I saw heaven opened, and there was a white horse! Its rider is called Faithful and True..." (Rev. 19.11)
So how could the Author of faith, the Spirit Who gives gifts of saving faith and the spiritual gift of faith not be faithful? It's like saying the source of the Mississippi River isn't really the source, isn't really involved in all that mass of water. Such is a ridiculous conclusion.
The sovereign God does as He chooses in His Own wisdom, timing and so forth. Oh, neither I nor you dear reader, always -like- it but His love and hand is upon us though we are so often ignorant and intolerant of it.
"Without faith it is impossible to please Him" (Heb. 11.6) but as He is the Source of it the issue isn't God. How we are tempted in this fallen, tragic, sinful, broken and brutal world of humans to blame God rather than face the reality of human will and choice -without, by the way, we would all truly be robots, chess pieces on a mad, mean deity's game board who toys with people for some sick sort of pleasure. Free will is a reality as well though even some believers deny it.
Back to the point: He seeks us out for eternal relationship. And- "Though He slay me yet I will trust and hope in Him". (Job 13.15)
Further- "The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness..." (2 Peter 3.9a)
God is good. I wish I could say all of we humans are all the time... Frankly, I don't have faith nor historical knowledge for that!!
As always, thanks for stopping by! -Glenn
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