Amelia wanted “eggy cheese” for breakfast and she wanted to help. Her only experience cracking eggs has been with her plastic color matching half dozen in her toy bin. She chose her egg from the carton on the kitchen counter and I gently wrapped my hand around hers, guiding her to tap, tap, tap on the side of the bowl. When the hairline crack appeared, I moved our hands above the bowl and with all her might, she crushed the entire shell, dropping minuscule fragments in along with the yolk and white. We washed our hands together and I cracked another egg, using the half shell to scoop out the fragments from her first attempt. Don’t ask me why this works, but I’m thankful it does or that first egg would have been a bust.
She’s learning about gentle touch this week with her new baby brother at home. She genuinely wants to help but there’s a pretty steep learning curve with cooking and with newborns. There are always new things to learn, no matter how long we live. First we learn the mechanics, then we spend a lifetime honing our skills. For instance, Amelia was quick to crawl, pull up, and walk. At two, she loves to run around and around the kitchen island but she’s a long stretch from the Olympic races. Our voice and vocabulary develop along with our motor skills, then our ability to think and reason, effectively making use of what we know.
Even before they were born, I made a habit of praying Luke 2:52 over my grandchildren. “Thank You, God, for Amelia. Help her grow in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man just like You did, Jesus. Amen.” She and Thomas have come to expect this and I notice them watching me intently as I have the opportunity to pray with them at bedtime. They know what’s coming and they seem to hold their breath waiting for the words. Conversations will follow over the course of their lifetimes and I pray even now for my words to honor God as I explain scriptures to them.
“Don’t be naive.
There are difficult times ahead.
As the end approaches, people are going to be
self-absorbed,
money-hungry,
self-promoting,
stuck-up, profane,
contemptuous of parents,
crude, coarse, dog-eat-dog,
unbending, slanderers,
impulsively wild, savage,
cynical, treacherous,
ruthless, bloated windbags,
addicted to lust, and
allergic to God.
They’ll make a show of religion, but behind the scenes they’re animals.
Stay clear of these people.”
2 Timothy 3:1-5 MSG
https://bible.com/bible/97/2ti.3.1-5.MSG
But don’t let it faze you.
Stick with what you learned and believed, sure of the integrity of your teachers—why, you took in the sacred Scriptures with your mother’s milk!
There’s nothing like the written Word of God for showing you the way to salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
Every part of Scripture is God-breathed and useful one way or another—showing us truth, exposing our rebellion, correcting our mistakes, training us to live God’s way.
Through the Word we are put together and shaped up for the tasks God has for us.”
2 Timothy 3:14-17 MSG
https://bible.com/bible/97/2ti.3.14-17.MSG
God gave us His Word so that we might be transformed by it, equipped for service, prepared for every unknown, and bold in our witness. His is not a frequently asked questions manual, though many use it this way. We will certainly find answers to many questions in the pages of the Bible, but His purpose in revealing Himself through His Word is summed up best by John in closing out his gospel.
“Jesus went on to do many more miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not even included in this book.
But all that is recorded here is so that you will fully believe (and never stop believing) that Jesus is the Anointed One, the Son of God, and that through your faith in him you will experience eternal life by the power of his name!”
John 20:30-31 TPT
https://bible.com/bible/1849/jhn.20.30-31.TPT
We are more connected than ever across continents while we often remain distant from those in the same room with us, but Christ commissioned us along with His first disciples, praying for us as those who would believe because of the testimony of the first, to carry His message to the nations. (John 17:20) Acknowledge Me on earth, Jesus said, and I will acknowledge you before my Father in heaven. (Matthew 10:32) Even for those who claim Christ as Lord, there is always danger of rebellion when we know what God has said and choose our own agendas. Knowing Christ as Lord means handing over the reins and dying to self daily. (Luke 9:23, Galatians 2:20)
“They said, “Come, let us build a city for ourselves, and a tower whose top will reach into the heavens, and let us make a [famous] name for ourselves, so that we will not be scattered [into separate groups] and be dispersed over the surface of the entire earth [as the Lord instructed].” [Gen 9:1]
And the Lord said, “Behold, they are one [unified] people, and they all have the same language. This is only the beginning of what they will do [in rebellion against Me], and now no evil thing they imagine they can do will be impossible for them.”
Genesis 11:4, 6 AMP
https://bible.com/bible/1588/gen.11.4-6.AMP
“Come, let Us (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) go down and there confuse and mix up their language, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.”
So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the surface of the entire earth; and they stopped building the city.
Therefore the name of the city was Babel—because there the Lord confused the language of the entire earth; and from that place the Lord scattered and dispersed them over the surface of all the earth.”
Genesis 11:7-9 AMP
https://bible.com/bible/1588/gen.11.7-9.AMP
The people made a collective decision at Babel to ignore God’s command to fill the earth after the flood and subdue it. At first glance, the English sounds as if God were threatened by their choice. Far from it! In His great mercy, God was saving them from themselves. The Amplified Bible paints them unified in their rebellion against God with evil imaginations that promised to be their undoing. But Peter clearly says that God is extraordinarily patient as He works all things toward completion, an eventuality that He sees and knows fully as He is already present in every moment of time and eternity.
“The Lord does not delay [as though He were unable to act] and is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is [extraordinarily] patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.”
2 Peter 3:9 AMP
https://bible.com/bible/1588/2pe.3.9.AMP
“Are you going to object, “So how can God blame us for anything since he’s in charge of everything? If the big decisions are already made, what say do we have in it?”
Who in the world do you think you are to second-guess God? Do you for one moment suppose any of us knows enough to call God into question?
Clay doesn’t talk back to the fingers that mold it, saying, “Why did you shape me like this?”
Isn’t it obvious that a potter has a perfect right to shape one lump of clay into a vase for holding flowers and another into a pot for cooking beans?
If God needs one style of pottery especially designed to show his angry displeasure and another style carefully crafted to show his glorious goodness, isn’t that all right?
Either or both happens to Jews, but it also happens to the other people.
Hosea put it well: I’ll call nobodies and make them somebodies; I’ll call the unloved and make them beloved. In the place where they yelled out, “You’re nobody!” they’re calling you “God’s living children.”
How can we sum this up?
All those people who didn’t seem interested in what God was doing actually embraced what God was doing as he straightened out their lives.
And Israel, who seemed so interested in reading and talking about what God was doing, missed it.
How could they miss it?
Because instead of trusting God, they took over.
They were absorbed in what they themselves were doing.
They were so absorbed in their “God projects” that they didn’t notice God right in front of them, like a huge rock in the middle of the road.
And so they stumbled into him and went sprawling. Isaiah (again!) gives us the metaphor for pulling this together:
Careful! I’ve put a huge stone on the road to Mount Zion, a stone you can’t get around. But the stone is me!
If you’re looking for me, you’ll find me on the way, not in the way.”
Romans 9:19-33 MSG
https://bible.com/bible/97/rom.9.19-33.MSG
Like precious Amelia, our intentions may be good. We want to help. We want to do what is right. We think we see what God is up to so we clench down and end up crushing the life out of His good and perfect gifts. Thank God for His extraordinary patience! I don’t know how He does it, or why He hasn’t already given up on me, but as I continue learning to ease my grip and let God be God, He scoops me up, having already taken my sin-sickness on Himself on the cross, and gives me enough of a glimpse of who He is that even when He turns up the heat, I know I am safe.
“Summing it all up, friends, I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse.
Do that, and God, who makes everything work together, will work you into his most excellent harmonies.”
Philippians 4:8-9 MSG
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