Feature Article
Two years ago I lost what I thought was my greatest earthly treasure—a newborn granddaughter. Yet this was only the beginning of a series of major losses in my life.
What was God doing? I had believed and taught others that God was
loving, compassionate, and caring. Now all I could see was God as a
righteous, almighty, majestic judge, unaffected by human feelings,
doing just what He wanted. There was a huge chasm in my heart and
emotions, with a loving, caring God on one side and an apparently
unfeeling, almighty, majestic God on the other. I struggled in my mind
and heart with these two ideas. I was unable to put them together.As the Lord led me in this journey I began to see that I had God in a box. This was "my" God and this was the way He acted. All of a sudden that was no longer true. He jumped out of my box and did something I did not like. I prayed, totally expecting God to answer what I had asked and He did not answer what I wanted.
God began to speak to me from many passages in Isaiah, letting me know
that He is beyond my control and understanding; and that He is THE
LORD, the only one. He has created everything as He wishes and He
shares His glory with no one.But I still struggled with these two seemingly opposing ideas of the God who loves and the God who is holy and untouchable. There was still a huge chasm between these paradoxical ideas in my heart.
As I opened the book Reflections for Ragamuffins, by Brennan Manning, and read his introduction, I began to understand this chasm and what I had been feeling. God will never be contained in any box. He is beyond understanding.
It is a mystery that He is equally a loving, caring, and compassionate
God as well as a holy, almighty, righteous judge. What bridged this
chasm in my mind and heart, I discovered, was to come to God and
acknowledge my insufficiency. Manning states that the mystery remains,
but "God can and will do anything so long as men and women are humble
enough to acknowledge their need of Him."When I am powerless, dependent, and helpless, and I acknowledge that in surrender to God, He is free to do as He sees fit in my life. He is in control and able to work according to His wise counsel. He will work in love even when all does not go the way I want it to. He wants me to trust Him no matter what. He says, "Blessed are the humble, the reign of God is theirs."¯ This understanding brought me peace.
Linda Haralson has been a Navigator wife for the last 31 years. She and her husband Jim have three married children, two grandchildren, and one on the way. They have recently returned to the U.S. after living in Mexico for 27 years. Last year they joined the Detroit Metro Mission team.
