The Lord is righteous in all His ways and kind in all His works. The Lord is near to all who call on Him, to all Who call on Him in truth. He fulfills the desire of those who fear Him; He also hears their cry and saves them. (Verses 17-19)
God is always right. That goes against our fallen nature. We butt up against His being right about everything all the time with a mutinous desire to "do it our way." It's like deciding to build a Mercedes Benz without the plans for where every bolt and screw goes. Because, Hey, we know what one looks like! Or believing, without blueprints, we could erect a safe, sturdy and beautiful home. We know what we want, so we go to Home Depot and buy the stuff we need. It couldn't be that hard. If we aren't already designers and architects, we aren't going to create squat. Same with our lives.
Why does it disturb us so that God is always right? He doesn't flaunt it. It is simply a fact of Who He is. And why wouldn't God always know the right and good way to...to...anything? As the mastermind of all that is, He best knows how it works and what our place is in this particular time and place. God has compared it to a lump of clay talking back to the potter. We can wriggle off the potter's wheel, but we will wind up a wet blob of mud on the floor somewhere. Yep. We got our own way. Good for us. If God is always right, it somehow makes us feel less. Like we don't actually control our own lives anymore. We want to make our own decisions, forge our own paths, make our own mistakes and say we did it ourselves. Smacks a bit of pride to me. It's what made Adam and Eve succumb to the same devil we listen to today. "You will be like gods." (Genesis 3) And that is what we really want deep down. Control. The ridiculous thing about our deciding to rule ourselves is that we don't do it very well. I know this. I have taken over the reins and landed in a ditch so deep our Father had to slide down a very steep bank to retrieve me. Because in His rightness, He is also kind. Most of us would leave a willful soul to pay the consequences of her own rebelliousness. I told you so! Not my Father. He is kind in all His works. Even in the toil of restoring us to Him.
I do have control. It's my choice what I do with it. I choose now, every day, to give it over to Him. I don't want it anymore. Why would I go it alone when the God of All is ready to fulfill the desires He puts within me, to hear me when I need Him, to save me when I am in trouble? The road of life is rocky enough without my having to navigate blindly every turn, every mountain, every valley. I can hold the hand of the One Who knows the way...IS the way. I'm very happy about my choice to cede control to my Father. It's not that I don't sometimes hop back into the driver's seat and get all excited about an excursion into stupidity. But at this stage in my walk with Him, I get tired of driving pretty quickly. I'd rather ride shotgun...or blow bubbles in the back seat.
The idea of being right all the time makes us mean. Take the Pharisees, for example. Jesus said of them, "You are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness (Matthew 27)." Very religious. Doing all the right things, many of which they'd made up to make the task of being right as hard as possible so that their rightness was a thing achieved by hard work. The more right they were, the more they looked down their noses at those who just didn't cut it. Hitler was right in his own mind. Stalin and Lenin, too. Worlds are toppled by causes that appear to be right. But...aren't. I know parents who put their hands over their ears, unable to hear their children because they are always right and their kids, even as adults, are wrong. That is control. And it is mean. It tells others they are not as smart as we are...as good, or well meaning, or kind.
God's rightness is predicated on the fact that He is kind. Those of us who know Him as our Father know this about Him. Love this about Him. The fact that He is right all the time, even when everything looks all wrong, is not a thing about which we want to fight our Father, but is actually a thing that gives us comfort. I can relax a bit in circumstances that I don't understand. He "works all things together for good for those who are the called according to His purposes (Romans 8)." Though God, because He is also all-just, punishes the wicked and corrects His children when they are wrong, He isn't sitting up on a throne in heaven with a whip in His malicious hands just waiting for the world to screw up. He wouldn't have to wait long...God is patient with us because, in His kindness, He wants the world to be saved. God's kindness is meant to lead us to repentance (Romans 2:4). In my natural state, I'm not even kind to myself. So how can I be expected to do what is right for me or others if I haven't allowed the One Who knows everything to inform my life? I need rescue and wisdom. I need a guide and a Helper. I could go it alone. He gave me that choice. I control the option. But my self-made Mercedes has ended up in too many ditches and my house was about to fall apart despite my best efforts. I choose to let go of the idea that I'm always right and listen to One Who is never wrong.
God is always right. That goes against our fallen nature. We butt up against His being right about everything all the time with a mutinous desire to "do it our way." It's like deciding to build a Mercedes Benz without the plans for where every bolt and screw goes. Because, Hey, we know what one looks like! Or believing, without blueprints, we could erect a safe, sturdy and beautiful home. We know what we want, so we go to Home Depot and buy the stuff we need. It couldn't be that hard. If we aren't already designers and architects, we aren't going to create squat. Same with our lives.
Why does it disturb us so that God is always right? He doesn't flaunt it. It is simply a fact of Who He is. And why wouldn't God always know the right and good way to...to...anything? As the mastermind of all that is, He best knows how it works and what our place is in this particular time and place. God has compared it to a lump of clay talking back to the potter. We can wriggle off the potter's wheel, but we will wind up a wet blob of mud on the floor somewhere. Yep. We got our own way. Good for us. If God is always right, it somehow makes us feel less. Like we don't actually control our own lives anymore. We want to make our own decisions, forge our own paths, make our own mistakes and say we did it ourselves. Smacks a bit of pride to me. It's what made Adam and Eve succumb to the same devil we listen to today. "You will be like gods." (Genesis 3) And that is what we really want deep down. Control. The ridiculous thing about our deciding to rule ourselves is that we don't do it very well. I know this. I have taken over the reins and landed in a ditch so deep our Father had to slide down a very steep bank to retrieve me. Because in His rightness, He is also kind. Most of us would leave a willful soul to pay the consequences of her own rebelliousness. I told you so! Not my Father. He is kind in all His works. Even in the toil of restoring us to Him.
I do have control. It's my choice what I do with it. I choose now, every day, to give it over to Him. I don't want it anymore. Why would I go it alone when the God of All is ready to fulfill the desires He puts within me, to hear me when I need Him, to save me when I am in trouble? The road of life is rocky enough without my having to navigate blindly every turn, every mountain, every valley. I can hold the hand of the One Who knows the way...IS the way. I'm very happy about my choice to cede control to my Father. It's not that I don't sometimes hop back into the driver's seat and get all excited about an excursion into stupidity. But at this stage in my walk with Him, I get tired of driving pretty quickly. I'd rather ride shotgun...or blow bubbles in the back seat.
The idea of being right all the time makes us mean. Take the Pharisees, for example. Jesus said of them, "You are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness (Matthew 27)." Very religious. Doing all the right things, many of which they'd made up to make the task of being right as hard as possible so that their rightness was a thing achieved by hard work. The more right they were, the more they looked down their noses at those who just didn't cut it. Hitler was right in his own mind. Stalin and Lenin, too. Worlds are toppled by causes that appear to be right. But...aren't. I know parents who put their hands over their ears, unable to hear their children because they are always right and their kids, even as adults, are wrong. That is control. And it is mean. It tells others they are not as smart as we are...as good, or well meaning, or kind.
God's rightness is predicated on the fact that He is kind. Those of us who know Him as our Father know this about Him. Love this about Him. The fact that He is right all the time, even when everything looks all wrong, is not a thing about which we want to fight our Father, but is actually a thing that gives us comfort. I can relax a bit in circumstances that I don't understand. He "works all things together for good for those who are the called according to His purposes (Romans 8)." Though God, because He is also all-just, punishes the wicked and corrects His children when they are wrong, He isn't sitting up on a throne in heaven with a whip in His malicious hands just waiting for the world to screw up. He wouldn't have to wait long...God is patient with us because, in His kindness, He wants the world to be saved. God's kindness is meant to lead us to repentance (Romans 2:4). In my natural state, I'm not even kind to myself. So how can I be expected to do what is right for me or others if I haven't allowed the One Who knows everything to inform my life? I need rescue and wisdom. I need a guide and a Helper. I could go it alone. He gave me that choice. I control the option. But my self-made Mercedes has ended up in too many ditches and my house was about to fall apart despite my best efforts. I choose to let go of the idea that I'm always right and listen to One Who is never wrong.
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