Attributes of God

My wife, as anyone who knows her can tell you, is a genius. Well ... she did marry me, so maybe I'll reserve final judgment on that. Anyways, the other day we were talking about God and His attributes. We talked about how many people and groups try and pick out one attribute that we see of God in Scripture and say "This! This one is His main focus!" We choose His love, which is vast. We choose His holiness, which cannot be approached. We choose His justice, His mercy, His grace. We try to pick one attribute and present it as most important. My wife's response to this: "What if God doesn't work that way?" It hit me like a brick. As people we generally have a main goal or focus in mind, but we're talking about God here. Not to say that He doesn't have purposes and plans. Scripture tells us He does. But it also tells us that His thoughts are higher than ours, so it follows that He wouldn't carry out His plans in a human-like way.

I'm not saying that we should not seek His will in any given situation. What I am saying is that we need to understand that we won't be able to fully understand what it is He's doing. One of my favorite JJ Heller songs (I know ... I just mentioned her in the last blog, but we've been listening to her music at our house a lot and so it comes to mind) is called Who You Are. The theme line of the song is, "I don't know what You're doing, but I know who You are." We can trust our Lord and Savior to carry out His plans for our good because of who He has proven Himself to be. One of my favorite quotes from A. W. Tozer's Knowledge of the Holy is, "With the goodness of God to desire our highest welfare, the wisdom of God to plan it and the power of God to achieve it, what do we lack? Surely we are the most favored of all creatures." He planned our salvation and sent His Son to pay the penalty for our sins. That's how much He loves us.

We can worship Him because He's good, but we ought not to put Him in a box and say things like, "Well if I were God, I would have done it this way." That is the height of arrogance. He is God, and we have no more right to judge His motives than an ant could judge ours. And even that comparison is flawed because ant and man are both finite creatures that can never truly compare to the infinite Creator. We ought to join Thomas in falling to our knees and declaring "My Lord and My God!" That is the only response to our great God that makes any sense to me. Praise His name.

I hope that these ramblings have led you to evaluate how you view God. Remembering that He is bigger than we could possibly imagine, greater than we can hope and more gracious than we deserve. I'm not saying I have Him figured out, and in fact I'm saying quite the opposite. He has revealed facets of Himself in His Word to us, so it's not hopeless to seek Him. We just need to remember that, at least in this life, and probably in the one to come, we will continually be seeking to understand Him.

P.S. If you've never read Tozer's Knowledge of the Holy I would highly recommend getting yourself a copy and doing so.