“Don’t look
at the man behind the curtain.” The temptation of Satan for Eve was that she
would be like God, knowing as God knows. Or at least that might have been what
she thought, but what he really said was that she might know “good and evil.”
Before that time she knew only good, yet in a moment her eyes were opened to
evil as she and Adam ate and knew sin for the very first time. The consequence
of this meant that they were removed from the Garden and their intimate daily
relationship with God and His Spirit was severed. They realized real quick that
eating would not make them as God, but would put them under the judgment of
God.
There are
none who know like God, who are all-powerful and sovereign over all of
creation, who hold time in their hands as He does. There are none and that is
all there is to it. As such He has called us to trust Him in all things even
those things in which we might otherwise tend to be critical, setting our
criticisms aside as ones who really don’t know what is going on in deference to
the One who does.
I remember
watching the Wizard of Oz a couple of hundred times (or so) and always enjoyed
the part when the wizard was trying to control Oz from behind the curtain. The
problem was that he truly was inept at his task and really could at best only
put on an appearance of control.
Today Sarah
writes about how amazed we would be if we were really to get a glimpse behind
God’s curtain. The reality is that we do get such glimpses. We get glimpses
when we look into the history of His Word and see how He has worked in the
lives of those who have gone before us. We get glimpses as we see how from the
beginning He had everything under control, even with our sin and rebellion and
our redemption, justification, and even glorification. We get glimpses as we
look at the prophecies of the Old Testament and the fulfillment of so many of
them. We get glimpses as we read the descriptions of our God as Father, Son,
and Spirit throughout Scripture. And we get glimpses as we see Him work in and
through our lives and those around us. There are so many ways in which He lets
us peak behind the curtain, yet even with the peaks what we know and can know
is so limited. So, the next time you are tempted to try to run things, remember
your peaks behind the curtain and that you are privileged greatly to have a God
who loves you so much and who has control over all creation.
Today in
“Jesus Calling” by Sarah Young (4/16)
I am calling
you to a life of thankfulness. I want all your moments to be punctuated with thanksgiving.
The basis for your gratitude is My sovereignty. I am the Creator and Controller
of the universe. Heaven and earth are filled with My glorious Presence.
When you
criticize or complain, you are acting as if you think you could run the world
better than I do. From your limited human perspective, it may look as if I’m
mismanaging things. But you don’t know what I know or see what I see. If I pulled
back the curtain to allow you to view heavenly realms, you would understand
much more. However, I have designed you to live by faith, not by sight. I
lovingly shield you from knowing the future or seeing into the spirit world.
Acknowledge my sovereignty by giving thanks and all circumstances.
And they
were calling to one another: “holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole
earth is full of his glory.” Isaiah 6:3
We live by
faith, not by sight. 2 Corinthians 5:7
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