The Answer

Every turn of the year has always brought about meaningful contemplation in our lives. Always, as the year ends and I am faced to the question of evaluating the days that have gone by, certain values emerge in my mind as to remind me of the lessons I’ve learned the past 365(6) days.
Closing 2009, I was blessed by a song I just learned at church. (Being translated) it says, “Father, You grant me what I ask. When I seek, I find. When I knock at Your door, You open. You are my Father, my Eternal Father. Never will You let me walk alone. You are always there for me. You are my Father, my Eternal Father.”
As singing the song, I realize that my Heavenly Father never grants me exactly what I ask of Him. My prayers, hopes and wishes seldom come true precisely the way I want them to. Is God being treacherous to me?
No, definitely not. I find Him to always answer my prayers differently and come up with something almost completely different from what I’ve asked Him (many times, His moves are bewildering). As I receive the answer to my bidding, I learn (sometimes through many, confusing days) that the thing He gives me is way much better than what I ask for.
God always grants me more than I could ask!
He is so good!
In relation to Christmas, we see that the way God deals with me is pretty much the same with the way He dealt with Israel.
Prior to Jesus’ birth, the Israelites were under the yoke of oppression, suffering in the hand of the Romans. They were all waiting in eager expectation for the coming of the Messiah, the Savior who will rescue them from the chain of bondage. Israel was praying for a Deliverer.
In their mind, they imagined their Savior coming in majesty, a Ruler who would overthrow the Roman government and bring everlasting peace to the land. When Jesus came, born an infant wrapped in swaddling cloth in a manger, raised as a carpenter’s son, and preached from town to town on foot (not on horseback), Israel dismissed Him. They couldn’t believe that this Man was actually God incarnate, the promised Messiah.
But God’s mind was ultimately different from the mind of man. He fulfilled His promise not the way man expected Him to. Jesus came to set free not only Israel from the bond of oppression, but (through His death and resurrection) He granted mankind liberty over the bondage of sin and death – which was way much oppressing than any foreign government could’ve been.
God did not grant Israel freedom. He granted freedom for all man. Now, that was unfathomable for any to grasp.
That’s the way God deals with us.
Never try to measure or judge God with our finite mind and understanding! He always provides us a much better answer. All we need to do is to have faith in Him.
This is the lesson I’ve learned through 2009.
Happy New Year and God bless you, All!