You just don’t understand
The oft heard cry of those who feel that someone else doesn’t get them, they are misunderstood, misinterpreted and it’s all very frustrating.
Isaiah gives us the cry of a misunderstood God:
Do you not know? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood since the earth was founded? (Isaiah 40:21)
Perhaps so many of our problems with God are because we misunderstand him. We don’t see the answers we are seeking because we are asking the wrong questions.
Because there is actually nothing and no-one to whom God can be compared. He is outside of our human experience.One of the first questions I had to answer in my Local Preacher training (way back in 1990, so the course before we have now…), was about the deficiency in language to describe God and what he is about.
But what we can understand about God is that he made everything. He knows how it all works.
And we are left with an assurance into the uncertainty:
Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no-one can fathom (Isaiah 40:28)
We do not need to understand God fully – if he could be understood, he wouldn’t be much of a God, he would be just the same as us. But we can rely on him.
He is everlasting – he’s not just a fad, here today, gone tomorrow. He won’t wear out or become bored by us. God is in the world for the long haul. He continues to keep his hand on it, and cares for it – even when we cannot understand what is happening. God constantly holds the bigger picture.
He has created to the ends of the earth – there is nothing that is outside God’s care and attention. There aren’t bits that he misses, some things that are in his blind-spot, or parts outside of his love. His tent is over all.
So should we do nothing and just leave God to get on with it? Absolutely not! Being part of God’s creation brings responsibility to care, to love and to hope; to wrestle with things we don’t understand that we might capture a glimpse more of God and what he is doing – and what he asks us to do with him.
For ultimately, God is the one who gives strength to the weary, power to the weak, and hope to those who feel they have none.
Thank you Lord,
that though we can never fully understand you,
we can trust you,
for you care for your creation.
Thank you that you invite us to work with you,
to be art of your love, hope and strength.
We pray
for hope for the hopeless,
strength for the weary,
and power to the weak
– in your name
