AXIOM
•Now, you think you understand God, and your confidence wanes.
•State facts about God even when you are not sure where God is leading you.
•When God is ahead of you, be astonished by what God reveals.
“At first I was confident I understood Him, but now I am not so sure,” said Oswald Chambers
How is Jesus a strange leader?
•It is strange how Jesus is both God and man.
He is a divine leader—He goes before me as my life unfolds, while understanding spiritual revelation. That means in his divine nature, He understands what it means to be human.
•It is strange how Jesus reveals things through revelation and human intuition.
I can know something without first gaining experience.
•It is strange how Jesus is the creator, which makes faith have power.
•Jesus is transcendent—He stretches across time and space yet is in the here and now.
•As I am God’s created image, I am a part of experiencing faith in this time and context.
There are moments when I think I know God in my heart, but then God allows something to happen, and my confidence wanes. Except for this waning confidence, I wouldn’t consider it faith.
A moment of doubt reminds me to be astonished by God when he reveals Himself. It is strange how, in the mystery of God, I can rationally state facts about God. God is Good, God is Omniscient and God is Creator.
These are facts about God, but I am not so sure I fully understand what they mean. God could mean one thing and yet reveal something else entirely about His character.
I am then astonished by where God is going and what he will continue to reveal.
“He is ahead of me, and He never turns around; I have no idea where He is going, and the goal has become strangely far off….” (Chambers).
Although God is ahead, He goes before me, but he never looks back directly to tell me where to go. God is a compass—He points the way toward morals and fortune, but also in the way of purpose, revelation and intuition. Perhaps God is close enough that I can still see Him, yet far enough away that He is out of reach. On this journey, I became astonished by God because he revealed who He is as God.
“They were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them. They were astonished, but those who followed Him were afraid. Taking the twelve aside again, He began to tell them the things that would happen to Him,” Mark 10:32.
The disciples on the road were astonished by what Jesus revealed. They did not ask where Jesus was going. As Jesus is a strange leader, he led the way by revealing who he is as God, not based on the direction God would take them.
He told them what would happen to Him on the journey, as he went ahead of them. In this way, they learned the facts about who God is, gaining confidence in their faith in Jesus.
Prayer: I am astonished by you, God, but at times I do not understand who you really are, and that causes my confidence to wane. Point me toward the direction I am to go; you are the compass guiding my life. You go before me; I trust you in the mystery of who you are.
Amen.
https://utmost.org/the-discipline of-dismay Holman Note Taking Bible, Holman Christian Standard Bible, Nashville, Tennessee, 1999. Print.
HLN Editor Becca Roberts ✲
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