![]() You cannot bargain with God.īecause he knows exactly how you will act in every if-then scenario, you cannot convince him to act a certain way by presenting him an offer of conditional obedience or reward. “This God-his way is perfect the word of the Lord proves true he is a shield for all those who take refuge in him” (Ps. ![]() Because he knows all potential outcomes and consequences, his ways are best. ![]() You cannot circumvent his logic or come up with an alternative or better plan. You cannot teach him a lesson of any kind. When you trust God as omniscient, you recognize and relax into four beautiful truths: 1. Our comfort lies not in holding all knowledge, but in trusting the One who does. It will mean minding our own business instead of meddling. It will mean leaving the knowledge of the future in the hands of the God who is already there. This will mean less time chasing curiosities online and more time mining for treasure in Scripture. And we need to look to the knowledge of who God is to remove our anxieties. Only he is capable, and only he can be trusted to do so with perfect wisdom. We need to let God be the one who manages all knowledge. Rather than meddling, focus on your own concerns. Rather than obsessing over the future, learn contentment in your God-ordained innocence of what is to come. Rather than casting all your anxieties on the Internet, which cares for no man, cast them on God, for he cares for you (1 Pet. But when we meddle, we multiply their troubles and ours. We all have relationships that we feel compelled to overmonitor-a spouse, a friend prone to crisis, even someone we admire or envy. There are seasons and circumstances in which these measures may be a means of protection and blessing, but as my children mature, I must increasingly release them to God’s care, trusting the all-knowing One to watch over them. Yes, I could stalk all their online relationships and monitor all their movements by GPS. Yes, I could read every text and email on their phones. This exploration of ten attributes that belong to God alone reminds us of why our limits are a good thing in light of God’s limitlessness-celebrating the freedom that comes from letting God be God. But it has been a challenge to move from a place of knowing their every move and every word to an age-appropriate place of not-knowing. The closer they move toward adulthood, the less I can (and should) be involved in their private conversations and affairs. As a parent, I have felt the desire to meddle grow as my children have grown. Meddling can be tricky to catch because it often masquerades as loving concern. They are the reason we have passwords on our phones and our computers. They are the consumers of tabloid journalism, the whisperers of gossip, the curators of the secret details of other people’s lives. If information is accessible, they view it as fair game. While they would no doubt fiercely defend their own right to privacy, they extend no such grace to others. Meddlers believe they are entitled to knowledge of other peoples’ situations. ![]() It is a form of violation of another person made in the image of God. The Bible terms this “meddling.” It is significant that Peter places meddling in the midst of a list of sins that includes murder and theft (1 Pet. We often exhibit an unhealthy interest in the affairs of others. It is none of our business.īut the future is not the only place we look for knowledge that isn’t ours to manage. We can trust God to manage the future without our help. Whatever tomorrow holds, we can be certain that its contents will raise as many questions as they will answer. We want to say that knowledge of tomorrow would remove our anxieties, but this assumes that tomorrow holds sunshine, or that knowing what it holds means we could face it better. We tell ourselves that if we knew the future, we would put that knowledge to good use, but how likely is that? It’s far more likely that we would use that knowledge to stoke the flames of our self-reliance and to forward our own interests. The Bible recounts instances in which God gave knowledge of the future to certain people for a specific purpose, but these instances cannot be taken as normative. For the believer, it’s much the same thing, loosely draped in religious trappings: asking God for an extrabiblical sign, claiming a Bible promise out of context, or attaching significance to dreams or “prophetic words.” For the unbeliever, it’s horoscopes, palm readings, and tarot cards. It’s no wonder the practice of divination stretches back to the earliest days of human history, and it still dogs us today. Like an impatient reader who flips to the last page of a suspenseful novel to relieve the tension, we want a peek into what’s next. The link between anxiety and not-knowing also shows itself in our craving for knowledge of the future. ![]()
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