Nothing shall separate
Knowing God for "Who he is" vs. “What he can do"
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Romans 8:35 KJV.
I was reminded about an event that happened sometimes ago. A friend of mine lost her first son. When I went to visit her she was totally devastated and a shadow of herself. I could literally feel her grief even as a friend. However, as I was about to leave her house, she whispered to me.. "Please don't view God from my experience because he is a GOOD GOD.
Honestly, though I knew what she said is true, but I couldn’t really comprehend how she was able to hold herself together to say that, even in the middle of her grief.
As I pondered on this event long after, I understood that my friend had chosen to remember God for who he is, rather than what he can do.
When we know God for who he is, irrespective of what situation we find ourselves, nothing about us or that happens to us, will change the perspective of who God is to us.
In my friend’s case she had no doubt that God could have stopped death from taking her son but he did not ( What God can do), but she decided to draw on her past experience of God’s faithfulness to conclude that he is a good God (What he is).
With this understanding, I asked myself again who God is, and the list started to flow; Faithful, Good, Reliable, Sovereign, Holy, Awesome, Kind, “God cannot lie", Solid Rock. The list goes on….
While I understand now that both Knowing God for "Who he is" and "What he can do" is good. The former however is needed when our faith is tested in the storms of life. And of course the storms will definitely come!
