The HIgher Things

"and heals the weak places"

THE FATHER gave me a taste of His perspective. Took me a while to figure out that’s what I’d experienced. I’m humbled He did so, humbled He speaks to me, so tender and kind. What I experienced, though, cannot be described, even if I were inclined to do so.

Most would try.

Here is the difference between me and those. God gives freely to all of His wisdom. He fills our understanding and heals the weak places in our thinking. He is generous. But He does not give the higher things (His word choice, not mine) to fast lips. Loose lips sink ships, my mother used to say. And in this case, ours. What we will not hold dear to us, close to our heart, willing to be quiet and unwilling to spill the beans, He will not share.

I like reading the EasyEnglish Translation of the Bible. But there are times where any translator comes up against a “this used to be in Hebrew” or “this used to be in Greek” brick wall. A passage of the book of Romans struck me all incorrect in its portrayal of the Father, and of God in general. There is a misunderstanding amongst believers about His character. We know He is love and mercy. We know He sent Jesus, ’cause John 3:16. Then we read words about His anger and wrath and judgment and toss all that out the window. He is love, but He is wrath?

Of course not. Not by our definition.

The nearest I can describe it is to say He made humans, He knows human thinking, and He is much-much higher. First, He doesn’t debate His decisions. He doesn’t have to weigh His choices nor decide what the proper justice is. He knows, and He acts, and it is just. Second, He gave us emotions, we can even say He has emotions … or perhaps, it is better said He is THE SOURCE OF EMOTIONS (Galatians 5:22-23) … but anger (an emotion) or joy (an emotion) do not change His opinions.

He’s put His anger beneath the blood of Christ. As in FOREVER. And actually, His anger, before Jesus’ death, wasn’t like anger at all, so even that is not how we’d define it. God’s anger is more like standing where He is not. He is Light. Sin put the devil and devils and mankind in darkness, devils entirely in the dark. God is in all places, we know from the Word. But unclean spirits are empty of Him, without even one trace, and that is God’s anger. It isn’t, to quote my mom again, “a flesh flash,” where you blow up and strike out. There’s simply no goodness there.

All of that said, any picture of the Father minus mercy and without love is grossly inaccurate. He loves His creation, He mourns the death of it (Matthew 5:4,48), He desires to show mercy, but for blatant, unrepented sin, He cannot. This is speaking strictly of devils. To preach hellfire to humans, to men and women, is to tell Truth in the wrong manner. Instead, showing kindness leads to repentance (Romans 2:4), and this is the Father’s heart. “Love one another” is God’s heart (John 13:34). We must see things from His point-of-view, which is far broader than we have realized. This is the simplest picture I can draw. Where we hear a lot of noise between His Words, the hiss and scratch of doubt and darkness, He has clarity. What we strain to hear and then wonder about, He knows the beginning and ending of, the intricacies, and every word spoken.

“Or do you disregard the riches of His kindness, tolerance, and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness leads you to repentance?” (Romans 2:4, BSB)

He is God, the ONLY LIVING GOD, who became human, humanity that He designed, that He created, that He saved. Our point-of-view looks upward. His looks outward, its depth far beyond what we can ever see or ask or think (Ephesians 3:20). Still, He would give us a glimpse of it, and it is of an honor to receive. But asks of us a heart of humility and submission, that we would treasure it and use it only as He intended. That we’d be like Jesus, who prayed such beautiful words to the Father in John 17, saying, “They will know you. And only you really are God. And they will know Jesus Christ, whom you have sent (John 17:3, EasyEnglish).”

An infinite God with an infinite view calls us upward.

Photo by Susan Brown on Unsplash


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Suzanne D. Williams, Author
www.suzannedwilliams.com
www.feelgoodromance.com