What more can He say than to you He hath said? Every bit of fear, discontent, frustration that dwells in my spirit finds a place there because of my stubborn refusal to believe God. There is not another promise that He could ever make that would finally deliver me to satisfaction. For He has already promised me everything. I have been given life by Him. I have been given new life by Him. I have been adopted by Him. I have been promised life forevermore. I have been made a co-heir with the Heir of all things. I have the Pearl of Great Price. I have been assured that one day I will see Him and I will be like Him. I have been reminded that every step between now and the fulfillment of all promises is for my good.
Like the rich young ruler, however, I still lack one thing. I lack eyes to see all that I have been promised and a heart to trust that every one of His promises are yea and amen. I don’t need my Father in heaven to promise me more. I need Him to give me greater sight to see all that He has already promised me.
Consider the snow. God was pleased to open the windows of heaven and pour out on us an abundance of hand-made, unique ice sculptures. He has been pleased over the past week or so to protect those sculptures with cool temps. On top of that He has given us clear skies and a brilliant sun. Out of which He has given us a display of sparkling diamonds everywhere we look. By His grace I am grateful for His grace. Some, however, can’t seem to see it. In much the same way that others see His grace in a hot summer day, and I miss it completely. The problem isn’t the hardships of snow and cold, or heat and humidity. The problem is the hardness of our hearts.
CS Lewis, in The Last Battle, presents us with a scene wherein the stubborn and cynical dwarves are unable to see that they have entered into paradise. They insist they are stuck in a dark and pungent stable, that the feast being offered to them was created by the digestive system of a horse. Our temptation is to tsk-tsk the dwarves. Or, if we are willing to draw the lesson a little closer to home we feel sad for the unbelievers who can’t see God’s grace all around them. It is also, however, an us problem. We are ungrateful recipients of the daily abundance of His grace, thinking like those fool dwarves, that we haven’t been given much and that we deserve more.
I don’t have a solution, save for the same solution I’ve been given to every other problem. I need to repent and believe the gospel. I need to repent of my ingratitude, my lack of faith, the dullness of my sight. I need to believe that He has loved me from the foundation of the world, that He has numbered my days for my good and His glory and that He walks every step of the way with me to eternal paradise. He’s a good, good Father.