A couple months ago, my family and I joined a new church. Because it is a fairly large church, I’m still learning many people’s names, especially the children’s. So when Timmy wanted to have a little girl named Taylor over for a play date recently, I had a hard time making that happen. Here’s how the conversation went:
Timmy: “Mommy, can Taylor come over?”
Me: “Who’s Taylor?”
Timmy: “She’s a girl.”
Me: “I don’t know her mom’s name. If I don’t know her mom’s name, I can’t look up her phone number and call her and ask her to bring Taylor over.”
Timmy: “Then just call Taylor. She’ll tell you her mom’s phone number.”
I told Timmy that things don’t work that way, and I even tried to explain why. But Timmy wasn’t buying it. He obviously believed that he had provided sufficient information for me to locate Taylor and make a playdate happen, and that if I wasn’t doing so, it must be because I didn’t want to help him.
I thought about trying to explain some more, but I knew it wouldn’t change anything. Timmy was not willing to give up his preconceived ideas about how things work, listen to my explanation and adjust his thinking. In his mind, I ought to be able to do exactly what he wanted me to do, and if I wasn’t doing that, there was only one possible explanation: I didn’t want to.
You and I look at this scenario and laugh. It seems silly to us that Timmy would question someone with an understanding of how things work that is (at least, at this point) vastly superior to his. It’s even more ridiculous that Timmy would come to a false conclusion about my willingness to help simply because I didn’t do what he wanted.
Yet you and I do the same thing to God. We bring our limited understanding to the table, believing that obviously, the best thing for Him to do would be to do what we think He should. Sure, we know His understanding is far superior to ours, and we even acknowledge that He is working out His plans and purposes in ways we may never comprehend. But just let Him act like the far superior Being that He is by rightly refusing one of our requests, and we conclude that He doesn’t really care, doesn’t really love us, doesn’t really want to help.
That’s just plain ridiculous.
Who are we to think we can understand Him well enough to rightly conclude something negative about Him, especially when His superiority over us far, far exceeds even our intellectual superiority over our children?
We are His creation, not His peer.
Job 36:23 says, “Who has prescribed His way for Him? Or who can say, ‘You have worked iniquity’?”
Adapted from Megan Breedlove’s blog, Manna for Moms. Megan is the author of Well Done, Good and Faithful Mommy and Manna for Moms: God’s Provision for Your Hair-Raising, Miracle-Filled Mothering Adventure (Regal Books.) She is also a stay-at-home mom with five children.
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