I’m not skilled

By worship leader, singer/songwriter Aaron Shust. Aaron Shust has written a number of worship songs including “My Savior, My God,” “Matchless,” and “Watch Over Me.”

When I have a good day I say, “God, thank you. You’re really blessing me.” Blessing is a word I think only Christians use. I’ve heard it means to “speak well about a thing”, but I think it’s used more often like we just got a raise, or a gift, or something. “God, bless me” means I want my business to do well, or I want a motorcycle, or I want to pay my rent this month.

When I’m having a bad day I say, “God, don’t forget me. Please hear my prayers”, as if He may have forgotten about me.

One of my favorite communicators, Bill Bahr, tells a story of a man who by a series of events misses his flight and when the plane crashes and everyone dies, an article is written in a Christian publication saying, “God was watching out for him”. Not long after that article, another article is written by the wife of a man, who by a series of miraculous events, made that flight, and the last communication they had was waving goodbye with joy in their hearts at how God had orchestrated his ability to make his flight…that would take him to his death. Was God working in one man’s life and not the other?

People are healed of cancer after much prayer. People die of cancer after much prayer. People are born beautiful and talented; people are born with deforming diseases.

My perception of how God should operate is so often focused on how He should make my life better. But one of the reasons His name is “God” is because He is smarter, wiser, and infinitely better (perfect actually) than me in all arenas. I can’t figure out the reasoning behind all that God does. But, I know that I am loved by Him because I FEEL it! I know with my heart that the promises written in the Bible are true. An act of faith? Absolutely. But once you feel the warmth of the sun on your skin, there’s no question that there’s really a ball of fire in the sky.

So whether I’m looking at one stitch on the backside of a tapestry and God’s looking at all of the front, or “I have point of view and God has view”, the bottom line is: I’m not skilled to grasp all that God has planned and I’m okay with that, because His ways are higher than mine. And I trust him.