Who is Like God

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Who is like God? His ways are so different than I might expect. When I look forward at my circumstance and where it seems He is taking me, I have a hard time seeing what He is working out, but when I look back, I see the brilliance and wisdom of His ways. This is what David testified to:


Psalms 71:19-21 Also Your righteousness, O God, is very high, You who have done great things; O God, who is like You? You, who have shown me great and severe troubles, Shall revive me again, And bring me up again from the depths of the earth. You shall increase my greatness, And comfort me on every side.


David was testifying that God's ways were not what He expected. No one else operates like God, because no one else knows what God knows! Psalm 33 says that God "individually fashioned" each heart. The heart of those who know Him, and those who don't, were all dreamed up and formed by God for a plan and a purpose. God wrapped your body around your heart, and sent you into the world to experience life connected to Him, if you want.


When I am connected to God, when I believe what He says is true...about Him and me...my heart (my mind, will, and emotion) starts to connect with what God dreamed for me. God won't force me into His dream of my life, but it is constantly available to me. I can jump into it at any time, but I have to choose it. Because of love, God refuses to force me into His ideal life for me.


It is this truth that the devil exploits to divide me from overwhelming success and victory. This choice...that I have a say in the direction of my life that is exercised by believing or not believing God...is the dynamic of life that is hidden from so many. We settle for a false sense of freedom allowed to touch us unfettered by the enemy. Satan's plan is that, if possible, we would never realize that our very claim to freedom from God's leadership is actually what closes the shackle around our ankle.


It is our lack of understanding about the perfectly kind, wise, and loving nature of God that satan uses to accuse God. For years, I didn't want to give God too much of my life, because I didn't want to lose too much of my ability to enjoy life! I listened to the most simple and powerful untrue accusation about God: "God knows less about how to make your life good than you do, Tom." I didn't hear those actual words, but that is what my choices reflected.


The truth is, I did not form my heart. I did not dream up the ideal life for Tom Stolz and then place desires within my heart that would match up perfectly with that life. God did! Only God knows how to unlock real and lasting life in my heart through my circumstances. The desires in my heart were placed there to be satisfied, but the human dilemma is that I have no idea how to organize all my days to satisfy those desires! Only God does. When I choose to trust Him, sometimes the circumstance seems contrary to a "good life." So the question is: will I settle for temporary satisfaction...a hit of pleasure that lasts hours or days, is completely unstable, and relies on circumstance to "stay real", or do I trust God, stop wasting time, and start going after eternal joy?


Joy and pleasure are way different. Joy is an innate sense of well being, not dependent on circumstance. Pleasure is a feeling, an emotion that comes with an experience. Joy produces lasting pleasure, but pleasure can never produce lasting joy.


Ask anyone who has focused their life on consistently reproducing pleasure outside of joy, and they will tell you it burns you out. This is addiction, the world's alternative to joy...temporary appeasement of what my heart craves, if given into fully, will always make me a slave to that pleasure. But a heart crafted to be continually satisfied forever will never be satisfied by anything less than an eternal experience. God is the author and the provider of the eternal experience that perfectly connects with the heart He formed in me. For love's sake, He waits for me to start the conversation.


God won't force me into what He made me for. I was designed for victory. I was designed for success. I was designed for love. But love requires free will. It is why the tree of rebellion was in the garden. It is why I can live year after year settling for less, even though everything my heart will desire forever is available to me right now, if I will believe God and shut the mouth of the accuser. If I will stop accusing God of holding out on me. Stop believing He has somehow forgotten about what I need, and start walking on water with a gaze fixed on Him alone:


Matthew 14:29-31 So He said, “Come.” And when Peter had come down out of the boat, he walked on the water to go to Jesus. But when he saw that the wind was boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink he cried out, saying, “Lord, save me!” And immediately Jesus stretched out His hand and caught him, and said to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?”


I don't have to wait to die to start living in eternity. It is easy to think that when we are face to face with Jesus, everything is going to be "easier" and then I won't have to live so weakly...but God's desire is that I would trust Him, like David did, and KNOW that my present circumstances are engineered by God to bring a new level of greatness...A new level of faith and obedience. Faith is simply believing God is perfectly knowledgeable, perfectly powerful, and perfectly loving and letting the trust in this truth build obedience in my life.


With faith, I can choose joy now...not wait for something to change in my life...holding my breath until I can be "happy." God isn't trapped in a "choose your own adventure" story that somehow went wrong. He isn't frantically trying to work out the story line! He has never lost sight of what He called "very good" in the Garden of Eden: God with man. If I have chosen Him, then I have it made, regardless of what the wind and waves might be trying to yell at me. Faith is the mode of life God, in His wisdom, has chosen to bring beauty from ashes. Faith pleases Him and unlocks eternity in us. Eternity is available to me every day, if I will chooses it...if I will choose faith.





II Corinthians 5:7 For we walk by faith, not by sight.

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