Sweeping up with four final questions about Everything Fits. The first three are HERE.

4.

What suggestions could you make to help me truly believe everything fits, when I really believe everything does NOT seem to fit? It is the “really believing” that is a challenge!

There was a time long ago during trips away from home when I thought to myself, “What if I forget how to get home?” (Crazy, eh?) On one occasion I badly frightened myself thinking how scary it would be to forget my way. What would you tell me if I told you it was a challenge to really believe I wouldn’t forget?

Believe it the same way you believe everything else. Sometimes God just gives you faith, but when he doesn’t, then you choose to believe. No one will make you, beg you, or prove it to you.

The first words in the Bible-“In the beginning God”-don’t try to convince you that there was a God in the beginning. It just states the facts. Believing it is up to you.

5.

Do we ever really reach a point where we accept that whether or not it makes sense, it all really does fit? Or is that a perpetual journey? Also, even if it all really does make sense and fit, what the heck do we do to heal and overcome all the scars in the process?

Maybe it’s steps. You can always go farther. You can also have peace wherever you are by just believing like a child. Kids don’t insist on understanding. They know how to trust that the grownups are in control. They ask questions and don’t understand the answers, but still trust. Grownups are too smart to trust. “Whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.”

I don’t know what to do to heal and overcome scars. Jacob limped the rest of his life. Jesus kept the holes in his hands and side. Life comes from death. Dirt grows beautiful living green things.

6.

So should we just not ask ‘why?’

I think we can ask anything we want. I just can’t demand an answer. God told Job that Job was not able to understand; and Job was as godly as they come. Some ‘whys’ God may tell me. Some ‘whys’ may not be best for me to know now.

Some ‘whys’ I may not ever be able understand; so on those, hammering at heaven’s door just won’t get me in. If I insist, I can expect a speech like Job got in chapters 38-41.

7.

For those who “get it,” what advice would you give to help talk to those who don’t? Seems hard to describe to someone unless you really know and trust your God in very intimate ways. That can be perceived as flippant, uncaring or unsympathetic by those in the midst of hardship or pain.

Yes, I agree. So don’t talk. If you truly trust God and believe everything fits, just let it show in your attitude, reactions, decisions, and in your peace. Then talk if they ask.

Bonus #8!

Give me one small practical thing to do to move me one baby step closer to accepting that everything fits.

This is lame but try it. Every time you doubt and question that everything fits, stare at your left hand. You’ve heard that your hand is filled with 27 bones plus ligaments, nerves, and muscles, yet you have never seen them. Now try to move your hand and wiggle your fingers-if you can, everything fits; if you can’t, it doesn’t.

* * *

What do you do when it’s hard to believe?

Or glaze over.

But the cool thing about Q&A’s is you can pick the ones you want to read. If you skip one, the next one still makes sense.

Maybe only one question asked about Everything Fits is for you, but since I don’t know which one, I’ll list seven and you pick. The first three are today. Four more come later.

1.

What do you mean when you say everything is engineered, permitted, or governed by God? Why use those words? Why not just say ‘control?’

To me, ‘control’ makes it sound like God has a big hand-held remote control and he’s toggling and steering all the details of his world. You could think that means we’re all puppets. So I use other words that show he’s in control but without blaming him for my pride or idiocy or slamming the car door too hard so my wife knows I’m peeved (that didn’t happen!)

2.

How could it make sense that God would allow a father to sexually abuse a daughter? And so she naturally ends up thinking ‘God where were you and how could you let my dad do that? What kind of God are you?’ You can talk all you want but that does not fit.

Lord have mercy. You’ll have to talk to Job. God allowed Job’s family to be killed and for Job to be thrown into suffering and poverty. Then God made sure he put it in the Bible.

The wages of sin is death and this world stinks with the smell of death. But it’s not going to stay this way. Until things change, there is comfort and help and victory in the middle of suffering and stink. I believe that but I can’t explain it.

My friend Dean said today that as he thinks of this world of confusion, waiting, regret, and hopelessness, he is comforted knowing that as a Christian this is the worst he’ll ever have it from now through eternity. He said he has Christ now, and Christ with a perfect world later. But for the person without Christ, this is as good as it will ever be-for them it gets worse.

Hero martyrs had opportunity for the same questions. God where are you to let this happen when I’m being faithful?

3.

The whole grace/law thing and God’s sovereign nature still puzzle me.

Well, grace doesn’t mean there’s no speed limit. But with grace I now am intimate with an indwelling Jesus and guess how fast he’s going? The speed limit. If I stick with him in trust, I go the speed limit without thinking about the speed limit-it’s just what I do.

When I break the speed limit I should feel something-not like a failure, but like “I must not be trusting Jesus because this guilt I feel is a sign.” My guilt should drive me back to intimacy with him and then the speed limit will take care of itself. That is very incomplete, but one way to look at it.

For God’s sovereign nature I picture two parallel train tracks going up into the sky. One train track is my free will and all my decisions. The other track is God’s sovereignty and control of everything.

I only see separate tracks that can’t both be the true at the same time But up in the clouds somewhere, those two tracks come together and make perfect sense, and I go, ohhhhhh I get it. And I worship. But that’s later. However if I believe it by faith I can go ahead and worship now in advance.

Long ago I told a friend that if he ever heard me saying my values were one thing but then observed me doing another, he should kick my butt and do it publicly. I’m glad I don’t know him anymore.

Usually you think people are phony or a hypocrite when they act like they’re something they’re not.

But it can be the same thing if you say you believe something but don’t act like it.

I say I believe God always loves me, and that he is always good and always in control. But I don’t always act like I believe it.

Believing is not something that happens to you. It’s something you do.

For the last eight weeks I’ve asserted my belief that I can have confidence and peace that somehow, some way, everything fits, even when it doesn’t. The natural result of this should be that I trust and cooperate with God in the fitting.

There is an easy way to know if I’m not trusting and cooperating: I worry.

It is not only wrong to worry, it is infidelity, because worrying means that we do not think that God can look after the practical details of our lives, and it is never anything else that worries us.

Have you ever noticed what Jesus said would choke the word He puts in? The cares of this world.

The great word of Jesus to his disciples is abandon.

- Oswald Chambers

I worry more than I want to admit. The other day I asked my wife what she would change about me. She said I get down on myself way too much. The reason I get down on myself is I don’t trust God.

But, when I DO trust God, I grow in peace in the middle of confusion, waiting, regret, and hopelessness. I accept-and even embrace!-myself and circumstances. And I see self-pity as sin.

It’s not enough to just agree with the idea that everything fits.

3 things to hang on to because everything fits

1. Believe it. All of it. Yes, you can decide to believe something. In 1949, right before his ministry exploded, Billy Graham decided to believe the whole Bible was true. When you get married, you decide to love this person and you decide to not love others. And you can decide to believe that God is always loving, always just, and always in control, no matter how it looks.

2. Act like you believe it. That means people see what you believe. Even if you have doubts and don’t feel like it’s safe, you can still make yourself get on the airplane. When I feel down and discouraged, I can make myself smile and sing and act positive, and soon that’s how I feel. That’s not hypocritical-NOT acting like what I say I believe is hypocritical.

3. Be gentle with yourself and others. Because everything fits, it’s not up to you to hold everything together. Seasons of doubt and faults and failures are part of everything fits-it’s a miracle! You have holes. You leak. So does everybody else. You do your best, but sometimes your best means all you can do is trust in God’s best.

What is one thing that might change for you if you really believed everything fits even when it doesn’t?

* * *

How much of God’s activity in your life do you think is beyond your ability to understand?

A few things? Many things? Most?

If you’re like me you say ‘most,’ but you live your life as if you expect to understand everything. And if we don’t understand something that’s important to us, we can cop an attitude (that we would never admit) towards God.

God knows this. So he wrote the book of Job.

Job was way better than you and me. ‘None like him on earth’ and ‘blameless and upright’ describe him. He was loaded with servants, property, possessions, and had a wife and ten kids.

In one day all his kids died and all his wealth was destroyed. He never knew why, but we do.

More going on than you can see

Satan announced that Job loved, trusted, and worshipped God only for what God could do for him. Satan said that without God’s blessings Job would curse God to his face. In the heavenly counsels where no people can go, this was all between God and Satan.

So Job loses everything in one day to swords and fire and catastrophe. You know the famous saying, “He gives and takes away; blessed be the Lord?” Those are Job’s words after he lost everything. Wow.

It gets worse. The whole Satan-God conversation is repeated, this time concerning Job’s health. Job ends up covered with “loathsome sores from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head.” His friends can’t even recognize him.

In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing

- Job 1.22

If your whole family was killed, and everything you owned was destroyed, and you suffered horribly 24-7, what would you say to God? Job’s wife tells him to just curse God and die. Instead, he calls her foolish. Wow again.

Job is a rock-star believer. He’s human however: he wishes he had not been born; he loses hope; he complains to God that his suffering would be understandable if he had been unfaithful, but he’s innocent.

His friends visit. They’re good people, but like you and me, one of the ways they try to help is by becoming little teachers explaining God’s ways and why this has happened. The explanations go on forever, chapter after chapter. Most of the book of Job is about the ‘help’ from the friends, and Job’s reaction. Their explanations add to Job’s suffering.

Understanding: a privilege not a right

In the end, Job not only gets NO answers to his questions of ‘why?’ but he is also LECTURED by God for expecting to understand!

Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me

- Job 38.3

A grieving, sick, suffering man gets no babying.

Then Job REPENTS of his expectations and worships God. Job’s family is still dead and he is still suffering and he still has no answers-yet he worships. Then God tells Job to pray for the guys who tried to explain God’s ways (warning to us all!).

The end. That’s all you get. No answers, no coddling.

You end up thinking that God is very politically incorrect. He doesn’t just let the worst happen to a good man-he started it. And then God rebukes the innocent man.

The most normal reaction to struggles is to ask, Why is this happening to me? Where is God? What kind of God would let this happen? He must not love me.

Isn’t it interesting that worship resulted from NOT understanding ‘why?’ We can make ourselves the judge of God if we imply, when it all makes sense, then I’ll worship you.

What if you found out that your confusion, waiting, regret, and hopelessness was all rigged, and intended to be an opportunity to prove to heaven and earth that you don’t trust and worship God just for what he can do for you?

* * * *

The Everything Fits affirmation:

Everything about my life, everything that happens

- the family I was born into

- the circumstances I have experienced and find myself in

- my personality and DNA and wiring and gifting -

is engineered or permitted or governed by a sovereign, just, loving God who always has three good things in mind

1) to develop my personal relationship and intimacy with him

2) to accomplish his purposes in the world, and

3) to further his own awesome, immeasurable aims that are bigger than my ability to understand.

Therefore, whether it’s past, present, or future, I can have confidence and peace that somehow, someway, Everything Fits Even When It Doesn’t, and I will trust and cooperate with God in the fitting.

What if I NEVER see a reason for my confusion, waiting, regret, and hopelessness? Is that okay? It better be.

Go ahead, solve the senselessness of stuff like 9-11

The Friday after 9-11, all the Clear Channel-owned radio station morning shows in Austin, TX gathered in one large room. It was a show of unity, to broadcast one morning show on all the company stations in town. One morning show on six radio stations with six different formats for six different audiences. Each station’s morning team would be heard on all the other stations, too. I worked for the country music station.

We did it as a community service response to 9-11. No music was played for several hours. Each morning show had a chance to share their thoughts and take questions from callers. Most of the personalities loved it.

I hated it; not my comfort zone, the other air talents intimidated me, and the audience was big and scary (weird for a radio personality, eh?).

The answer for others

I prayed about what to say if I had the chance. I hated the idea of blabbering on with some inane opinion that didn’t mean anything. The only thing I could think of was the idea I heard somewhere of the image of a quilt. From the top, the quilt looks orderly and beautiful. From underneath all you see is a tangle of chaos. From the bottom you’d think this mess could never make sense. I thought about the quilt and 9-11.

The moderator for the show was a casual friend in our building. He knew I was a believer. When the show started, he looked right at me and his very first question on this broadcast to the largest radio audience I will ever have was, “Gary, you’re a man of faith, how does all this make sense to you? Where is God in all this?”

At that moment, I realized what an out-of-body experience felt like. I could not believe he was asking me this question, the only one I had prepared for.

I told the quilt story. I said God sees the top side of the quilt and from above it’s a different view that I can’t have right now, but that I trust his view. (I wish I had added, “and one day you can have that view too.”)

It was the only thing I said the entire morning.

The answer for you

I hate the quilt. I hate simplistic explanations of complex things. It’s helpful on a radio broadcast, or to get everyone’s head nodding yes in a class. But you don’t sit down with a friend struggling with a tragedy or loss and say, “I know you’re struggling to understand, but really it’s like a quilt . . .”

It’s easy to talk about the quilt idea when it’s not something that touches me. But when I get my own personal 9-11 or Newtown or Boston Marathon finish line, then an idea of a quilt is not enough. I need reasons and understanding to get through the pain and confusion.

But I often don’t get any reasons. And so the quilt is not something I use for someone else. The quilt is for me (and you) personally.

Thus the challenge that must be faced alone: Is it enough for me to know there are answers I don’t get to see? Can I let God be really big and me be really small?

How big is God compared to me? Whatever the difference; that might be the difference I can expect between what I can understand and what I can’t.

So, what would you pick?

* * * *

The Everything Fits affirmation:

Everything about my life, everything that happens

- the family I was born into

- the circumstances I have experienced and find myself in

- my personality and DNA and wiring and gifting -

is engineered or permitted or governed by a sovereign, just, loving God who always has three good things in mind

1) to develop my personal relationship and intimacy with him

2) to accomplish his purposes in the world, and

3) to further his own awesome, immeasurable aims that are bigger than my ability to understand.

Therefore, whether it’s past, present, or future, I can have confidence and peace that somehow, someway, Everything Fits Even When It Doesn’t, and I will trust and cooperate with God in the fitting.

Then abandon hope in this:

In the middle of confusion, waiting, regret, and hopelessness, you want an arrow.

A straight, pointy, solid arrow. An arrow that connects your troubles to wonderful “it’s all worth it!” results.

An arrow would help you endure. When you sacrifice and save cash for a down payment on a house, you know exactly what it’s for. Savings on the left, house on the right, straight arrow in between.

You don’t get an arrow.

Oh, things are definitely connected. But it’s more like the dotted line between Billy’s start and finish.

Billy knows where he’s going. He just likes to take the long way to get there.

When you’re in the middle of trying to make sense of your family, or your circumstances, or your junkie stuff, you DON’T know where you’re going. You say you believe that God knows, and has a purpose, but without the arrow pointing right at the purpose, you’re not sure what it is. You feel lost somewhere on the endless dotted line.

You’re not alone. This is normal. The long way home is how you get on the shaped-by-God team.

Expect the long dark night

The day Oswald Chambers told God he wanted a more intimate relationship with Jesus was the beginning of the worst years of his life.

From that day on for four years, nothing but the overruling grace of God and the kindness of friends kept me out of an asylum.

God used me during those years for the conversion of souls, but I had no conscious communion with Him. The Bible was the dullest, most uninteresting book in existence, and the sense of depravity, the vileness and bad-motiveness of my nature was terrific.

— from Oswald Chambers: Abandoned to God

You sincerely ask God for intimacy and you get misery! Where’s the blessing and reward? Why ask for more of God if you know you’ll end up half-crazy?

You have to go way down before you go way up. Apparently there is no shortcut.

When Oswald Chambers came out of those 4 years of the dark night of his soul, he became the Oswald Chambers the world needed. Friends called him, “the greatest demonstration we had ever seen of the Sermon on the Mount fleshed out.”

During his life he spoke to dozens and hundreds. Today, because of the man he allowed himself to become, God’s purposes in the lives of millions have been advanced. Every morning his words still speak to me.

I see the arrow from Chambers’ struggle to God’s purpose as straight and pointy. To Chambers at the time, it was the dotted line tracing a kid’s meandering to the school bus.

Expect confrontation with your own insufficiency

Bill’s wife was sick wife for a long time. One day he came home surprised to see her working in the garden. “You’d better stop and go rest, you know what’s going to happen.” He knew she had very little energy. She said she felt fine.

She was fine. Her illness had left her. And something else happened. A peace beyond understanding had been born in her.

Bill was awed by the supernatural change in his wife. He grew to want the same thing. He began praying that God would change his life, too (uh-oh). He knew that the struggle and hopelessness of her illness was key. By faith he made preparations at work and financially for a long incapacitation.

Instead, his wife asked him for a divorce.

This began his own dark night of the soul, where he was forced to confront what kind of man he must be to cause his godly wife to want to divorce him. Like his wife, and like Oswald Chambers, he was squeezed into confusion, waiting, regret, and hopelessness. Like them, he came out the other side into humility, grace, and peace.

Bill ended up with a Bible study attended by hundreds - at work. And, he mentored Harold. Harold mentored me. Through Harold my whole family has been shaped.

In heaven the arrow is straight. On earth you get the crazy dotted line.

Expect to go down so others can go up

Jesus came to earth on a mission of selflessness. His father had plans to rescue people and creation. Jesus was the plan. We know what Jesus went through to accomplish those purposes; suffering, rejection, death. But then it gets scary when he says things like

Just as you sent me into the world, I am sending them into the world. And I give myself as a holy sacrifice for them, so they can be made holy by your truth

- John 17.18-19

Yikes. He’s talking to his father about me (and you). I’m on the same mission of selflessness. No, I can’t go through what he did, but I’m still put here for God’s purposes, not mine.

That takes shaping. The shaping is not fun. If I could just see a straight arrow connecting the pain of shaping with the purpose for it, the shaping might be more bearable.

My arrow can’t be straight because all the stuff needed to make me usable for God’s purposes is crooked, confusing, and painful. It can feel like death.

For the joy set before him, Jesus endured the cross. He knew that at the end of the dotted line everything fit.

I’m willing for someone to take the long, mysterious, dotted-line journey to accomplish God’s purposes for me. But, am I willing to do the same for God’s purposes for others?

Who (besides Jesus) has paid the price to be on the shaped-by-God team for you?

—-

The Everything Fits affirmation:

Everything about my life, everything that happens

- the family I was born into

- the circumstances I have experienced and find myself in

- my personality and DNA and wiring and gifting -

is engineered or permitted or governed by a sovereign, just, loving God who always has three good things in mind

1) to develop my personal relationship and intimacy with him

2) to accomplish his purposes in the world, and

3) to further his own awesome, unmeasurable aims that are bigger than my ability to understand.

Therefore, whether it’s past, present, or future, I can have confidence and peace that somehow, someway, Everything Fits Even When It Doesn’t, and I will trust and cooperate with God in the fitting.

I am not an orange or a grape. I do not like to be squeezed.

But for most of us, peace and godliness are squeezed into and then out of us. We’re on a journey of sporadic mountain-top enlightenment, dark discouraging valleys, and numberless plateaus of numbness. The valleys and plateaus squeeze us.

The squeezing is the part we hate and pray to escape. It’s also the part that can lead to what we really want. This is the secret that peaceful, godly people want you to know.

Bad times are good ways to discover the sufficiency of God

When we moved to Texas fifteen years ago the passenger seat floor of our Camry was piled with tissues filled with my wife’s tears. Leaving family and a new grandson and starting over again in a strange land with no friends brought Brenda to the end of herself. She had been on the way to the end of herself for a long time.

In Scary Hope I describe it this way:

“Lord, how long can she go on like this?”

For years I laid on my back in bed next to my wife, eyes open, praying through the ceiling, arms raised straight up in the air like a dead horse. She was asleep and never knew.

Brenda lived an agitated, anxious life. You didn’t usually notice on the surface, but it was always there inside her like a distracting buzz.

Every day, we all have several issues we live with that are a potential source of anxiety: marriage, finances, children, work, friendships, expectations, health, self-esteem, desires, needs. These issues rotate, may be resolved, disappear for a while, and return. New issues enter the rotation and old ones dissipate. It’s part of life.

For Brenda, her soul seemed to say, “I can’t have peace until all that stuff is fixed.” Which is impossible.

Friends misunderstand you? No peace.

Pain or headache that lasts longer than a day? No peace.

Husband within twenty feet of another woman? No peace.

At every moment of every day for twenty-five years, one or more of these words applied to her: jealous, insecure, argumentative, anxious. It was all under the surface, but busting out in ways that confused a mere husband. It was always mixed with a gentle personality. Gentle and agitated, that was her.

She was a sweetheart and I loved her madly. Her suffering killed me.

One day I came home from work and she was reading a book. She held it out to me, pointed to a page and said, “Is this true?” It was something about the finished work that Jesus Christ accomplished on the cross, not just for heaven, but for here right now.

“Oh, yeah, that’s true.”

That was the moment everything changed

A supernatural peace was born in her. It was a silent, unspectacular turning point. She became a woman of grace, instinctively trusting the sufficiency of Jesus Christ for everyday living.

She had been a Christian for twenty-five years, but still believed there was something left undone in her. Then God personally showed her, in a way I still don’t understand, that all her un-dones were done on the cross with Jesus. And she believed it.

No circumstances changed. We lived in Texas for four more years. All the daily potential sources of anxiety remained. Yet peace and godliness reigned.

Confusion, waiting, regret, and hopelessness squeeze me. I want relief, I want solutions and answers, I want things fixed. I want satisfaction and release from the tension between how things are and how I think they should be.

But, I want these things more than God does. He could snap his finger and fix everything. He doesn’t, so he must have other priorities.

One of those priorities is to develop my personal relationship and intimacy with him. Like he did with Brenda.

The privilege of unresolved problems

King David often woke up in the middle of the night obsessed with thoughts of God. I have never lost sleep because I couldn’t stop thinking of God. Yet even David, the ‘man after God’s own heart,’ did not do well in good times.

He was much closer to God, much more alive spiritually, when he ran for his life, needed rescued, and lived with unresolved problems. When times were good he disengaged from his kids, got lazy, had an affair and then covered it up by killing the husband. Prosperity was his enemy. But the bigger his problems, the more intimate he was with God.

Unresolved problems must be a big deal. It must be good for me and pleasing to God for me to really experience his sufficiency personally, and not just know it in my head. It must be a big deal because he’s always creating or allowing opportunities for me to find satisfaction in him alone.

Usually, however-and knowing better-I still try to find my greatest satisfaction in solved problems. But the peace that comes from solved problems is not the same peace that comes from God.

The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let you requests be made known to God.

And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

— Philippians 4.6-7

The scent of people who personally experience God’s sufficiency

They are peaceful because they have abandoned control of how things turn out. They have given that control to someone they are convinced is trustable. They have experienced the sufficiency of the one they trust. They have accepted squeezing. That scent is the aroma of God.

Remember a time when you felt super close to God? What was happening in your life?

* * * * *

The Everything Fits affirmation. Each Monday we look at one part:

Everything about my life, everything that happens

- the family I was born into

- the circumstances I have experienced and find myself in

- my personality and DNA and wiring and gifting -

is engineered or permitted or governed by a sovereign, just, loving God who always has three good things in mind

1) to develop my personal relationship and intimacy with him

2) to accomplish his purposes in the world, and

3) to further his own awesome, unmeasurable aims that are bigger than my ability to understand.

Therefore, whether it’s past, present, or future, I can have confidence and peace that somehow, someway, Everything Fits Even When It Doesn’t, and I will trust and cooperate with God in the fitting.

Depends on who says it, doesn’t it?

If I say it, you chuckle. Or mock.

If God says it . . . well, he wouldn’t say it that way. But he could because it’s true.

You can’t possibly keep up with someone who knows everything

When I first believed in Jesus I just could not wait until six months passed so I would know something about what I believed.

Twenty-five years later I can’t wait until I believe what I know.

Actually, I could believe it right now. I have a choice.

But, believing is harder than knowing.

Believing doesn’t mean I nod my head when someone says something that’s true. Believing doesn’t just mean I agree that all those things happened in the Bible.

Believing is that day I got fired and put my hand on the knee of my boss sitting next to me and said, “I know this is hard for you but I want you to know it’s OK because my God is very big and loves me and he’s in control and I trust him.” The words came out without me thinking because I believed it was true.

But on those days when I grumble and carry on imaginary arguments with people who rub me wrong-that is not believing. The invisible grumbling and arguing comes out without me thinking because at that time I DON’T believe God is big and in control and loves me.

You CAN believe what doesn’t make sense

To me, everything about my life - the family I was born into, all the stuff that has happened to me, the kind of person I am with my DNA and wiring and gifting - is engineered, permitted, or governed by a God who loves me, controls everything, and knows exactly what he is doing.

I believe he is always in control, always just, and always loving-and all at the same time without ever compromising any of his control or love or justice.

Really? So God engineered, permitted, or governed this mess? (Substitute anything you want for ‘mess’). That’s outrageous!

Okay. He didn’t permit it. It happened despite his efforts to stop it. He wanted to stop it but couldn’t. He tried, but he’s just not strong enough.

But you read,

By him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities-all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things , and in him all things hold together. - Colossians 1.16-17

Okay then, let’s say he’s strong enough and could have stopped it, but then that means he is not loving because he permitted this horrible mess to happen to people (or me). You call that LOVE?

But you read,

As high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him - Psalm 103.11

For those who love God, all things work together for good - Romans 8.28

And the angels peer over the rim of heaven and look down upon the earth to see how God will resolve the dilemma of his love and power in the sight of man. But in the sight of man he does not.

Logic will not take you far enough

I’ve been the one. I can use logic as well as the next person. And if I don’t get answers that make sense I can stand confident in my conclusions until I have enough evidence to change my mind. God must earn the right for me to trust him because my understanding is king.

Except: I don’t understand how television works. To me, TV defies logic. Yet I still use it. Same with the motherboard of this laptop, and Pandora, and my wife’s intuition when she discerned that the homeless couple I wanted to help wasn’t really homeless and then later they returned the groceries we bought for them and tried to get a refund for cash.

And I don’t understand how an internal combustion engine can have all those little explosions going on every single second for years and propel a car a couple hundred thousand miles. But I don’t argue. I don’t have to understand. I just keep driving my 4Runner.

So do I insist that God’s ways must make sense before I trust, but mystery and ignorance are just fine for the other parts of my life?

Once I get on the logic train, I need keep going and ask, “What unimaginable logic would allow God to permit something bad to happen AND to be in control AND to be good AND to be loving? All at the same time?

I don’t know. The train stops before you get there. But it’s the same unimaginable logic that engineered, permitted, and governed the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. NOBODY understood that at the time. Yet, it all fit.

God could have enacted a plan that didn’t include the suffering and death of his son, but he didn’t.

He doesn’t leave himself out of the consequences of his own plan. He doesn’t leave me out, either.

I can fight, resist, and argue, but I’ll be on my own because my God will not be big enough for me. Or I can agree and trust him and allow him to be my comfort and my strength as he makes the confusion, waiting, regret, and hopelessness fit.

Does he really conquer giants?

And call out kings?

Shut the mouths of lions?

Tell the dead to breathe?

Does he walk through fire? Tear down walls? Set the prisoners free?

Does he fill the hills with angel armies only faith can see?

What are you trying to believe right now, even though you don’t understand?

* * * * *

The Everything Fits affirmation:

Everything about my life, everything that happens

- the family I was born into

- the circumstances I have experienced and find myself in

- my personality and DNA and wiring and gifting -

is engineered or permitted or governed by a sovereign, just, loving God who always has three good things in mind

1) to develop my personal relationship and intimacy with him

2) to accomplish his purposes in the world, and

3) to further his own awesome, unmeasurable aims that are bigger than my ability to understand.

Therefore, whether it’s past, present, or future, I can have confidence and peace that somehow, someway, Everything Fits Even When It Doesn’t, and I will trust and cooperate with God in the fitting.

Don’t do what I do

But I’ll bet you already do.

I obsess over mistakes and failures and my dumb personality, then I compare myself to others, then I judge myself, then I get depressed. Then I think God feels the same way about me as I do.

All the while, God is obsessed with something much more important: my self-rule and self-sufficiency. He wants me to stop being my own boss and to stop trusting myself.

But, I just want to be liked and not make a fool of myself. I just want to know when to shut up. I just want to finally clean out the garage, cure my procrastination, and not drop the ball at work. I just want to stop dreaming more than doing; Oh God don’t let me be exposed like Molesley on Downton Abbey who could only talk a good game of cricket.

I would rather be a better person by my own definition than by God’s definition. When I obsess over shortcomings as if they were sin, I become my own God, inventing my own definition of sin. I make my shortcomings bigger deals than my self-rule and self-sufficiency.

I wish I’d get it all straight and get rid of my junk.

Yes I have junkie stuff. But I’m not junk.

Why does God love you?

Does he love you because you’re awesome and do great things?

Does he love you because he’s God and the Bible says ‘God is love’ so he has to do what the Bible says but it’s not really personal? And he sort of wishes he didn’t have to love you?

My friend Tony asks people who follow Jesus but feel unloved because they still mess up,

When God punished Jesus for your sin on the cross, did he hold back a little of his wrath and put it in his pocket so he could take it out and fling it at you the next time you messed up?

God loves things he created in his image. That’s you.

Right at the beginning of the Bible he says he created you in his image. Then he tells the very first people to be fruitful and multiply and exercise authority over their domain and to connect with others. This is part of his image and is your heritage.

You were not made to live a disconnected, non-contributing, helpless, depressed, excuse-filled, humdrum life. You were made to create, contribute, connect, and leave a mark. You have been specially wired and gifted to cover your specific assignment, your corner of the pool.

You are who you are on purpose

But you were made to do this in union with God, not on your own. When you don’t do it in union with him, then you look at other people, or you look for a list, to try to know what it looks like for you.

You want a familiar job description, like you see with others. With a familiar job description you’ll have an identity, and you’ll know who you are: an ‘author’ or ‘business owner’ or ‘singer’ or ‘pastor.’

What it your job description is unique, just between you and God, and is the kind of thing no one else will appreciate? What if your calling is for some crazy thing like a life of grace and patience that spreads in everyday situations, and maybe people notice and maybe they don’t? Does that count?

Do you know what happens to people who reject their unique job description and insist on doing what they’re not wired to do?

Why don’t you know anyone else exactly like you?

Do you know anyone with your exact combination of interests, experiences, fears, hopes, disappointments, passions, friends, and who also orders your exact favorite Starbucks drink?

Hot dogs and pencils are cranked out on an assembly line. Not you. You’re hand-made. One-by-one and one-of-a-kind. It’s personal. Own it.

If all the pieces of the puzzle were exactly the same, they wouldn’t fit. You have to be you to fit.

But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’ - Romans 9.20

Bigger than your faults

In Genesis 20 Abraham lies. He says his wife Sarah is his sister. He’s done this before. He’s afraid the king might hurt him to get to his wife. So the king thinks Sarah is Abraham’s sister, and takes Sarah into his house.

Later, God tells the king he is a dead man if he touches Sarah. This does not make the king happy.

He goes to Abraham and wants to know why he lied. Abraham tells him.

The king orders Abraham to leave, and gives him a passel of sheep and cattle and servants and money to take with him. He tells Abraham to go anywhere in the king’s kingdom that he wants — he gets to pick.

What? Abraham just got blessed big time. Even though he lied!

He wasn’t blessed because he lied, but despite it. Still, shouldn’t there be some consequences? Maybe not an angel of death swooping down or the earth opening up, but at least his pants should catch on fire. Anything but blessing.

This is mighty encouraging.

Only God knows everything going on, everything he’s doing, and everyone’s heart. He doesn’t have to turn over his sovereignty to some automatic cause-and-effect machine that he created. He can decide, case-by-case, the best way to bring about what he has in mind.

And apparently, when your heart’s right, if God has something he’s going to do and he’s decided to use you, he doesn’t have to let your faults stop him.

Which chunk of what you’ve read here means the most to you?

• Don’t treat your junkie shortcomings the same as real sin
• God loves you anyway
• Embrace your unique wiring and job description
• And don’t let your faults stop you if they don’t stop God

* * * *

The Everything Fits affirmation:

Everything about my life, everything that happens

- the family I was born into

- the circumstances I have experienced and find myself in

- my personality and DNA and wiring and gifting -

is engineered or permitted or governed by a sovereign, just, loving God who always has three good things in mind

1) to develop my personal relationship and intimacy with him

2) to accomplish his purposes in the world, and

3) to further his own awesome, unmeasurable aims that are bigger than my ability to understand.

Therefore, whether it’s past, present, or future, I can have confidence and peace that somehow, someway, Everything Fits Even When It Doesn’t, and I will trust and cooperate with God in the fitting.

Every time you get knocked down or pushed around, or see things like 9/11 or Boston or Paris, you grieve and doubt and yearn for it to make sense.

My friend Oswald Chambers has something to say about this:

Tenacity is the supreme effort of a man refusing to believe that his hero is going to be conquered.

The greatest fear a man has is that the things Jesus Christ stood for - love and justice and forgiveness and kindness among men - will not win out in the end.

Then comes the call to spiritual tenacity, not to hang on and do nothing, but to work deliberately on the certainty that God is not going to be worsted.

To show that Jesus Christ is not conquered, what one act will you do today to exalt love or justice or forgiveness or kindness among men? Just one. And maybe you don’t tell anyone.

That one act will be your contribution to demonstrating everything fits.