Abracadabra!

"You're telling me that God tests our faith to produce patience?! I don't understand why if God's so powerful, why he has to 'test our faith' to make us patient or to produce anything in us!... I don't understand why He let's us go through any of the terrible things that people go through. If it's to teach us something, why doesn't He just snap His fingers and make us know it?!"

We are studying the book of James with our youth group on Wednesdays. This past Wednesday, a sophomore girl, asked this question as we finished reading verse 3 of the 1st chapter. What an honest- common question. How many times have we wondered "How could God do this to me-" or even "-to her?" If He is trying to teach us something why doesn't He just tell us?! Why do we have to learn through pain?

I asked the girl, "You've heard the Bible refer to God as the potter and we the clay, right?" She nodded her head in slightly confused agreement. I continued "What if the potter did just wave a magic wand over the lump of clay, said some magic words, and BAM- the lump was a beautiful pot?... The truth is- God is relational. He doesn't want to just snap His fingers and own perfection. He really does desire to be intimate with us. He wants to stoop down to our level, take his hands, wet with purifying waters, and warm our souls. In that heat, He loses sweat in us and we begin to take shape in Him. Though we feel the discomfort of resistance, He holds us tenderly. When He sees debris in the clay, He pulls it out. We lose a bit of ourselves. It hurts, but He heals. Though we may feel paralyzed from the pain, He is still making that wheel go 'round, and keeping His hands strategically placed. He really is relational..." (I was realizing the truth in it as the words came out.)

I got to thinking more and more about that conversation. No wonder no one can explain the Trinity- No one can explain relationships (chew on that for a while). The Trinity is the ultimate relationship. God is the Trinity. God can't help but relational.

Beside the Trinity talk that might have lost some of you, I also thought about all the things God did just abracadabra upon our beings. ... breathing, hearing, seeing, feeling, blood pumping, nerves talking, eyes blinking- come on! Think about the bazillion things that go on inside your body in order for you to simply be sitting there reading this.

And on a more shameful note, think about the times He has tried to "just tell us". How many hard times could we have avoided, had we just heeded His commands or standards. I don't like to say that experience is the best teacher, (though I do believe it is a very effective teacher); it's not the best. I prefer to say that as humans, for some reason, we don't see the value of knowing what's good and what's bad. We don't see it's value until we have applied it... or neglected to apply it. So instead of looking at every hard time as Satan tempting us, God testing us, or experience teaching us- look at those times as chances to apply our knowledge of what is good. ... Hindsight is 20/20, I know. But He has "just told us" a lot of things.