Those Things

     Our ladies Bible study group has recently begun The Quest.  I am so thankful for God's timing in our group's choosing this study and for Beth Moore's obedience to God's leading in its writing!  Last week, some of the reading was in Romans 4.  I loved it all, but I was snagged by verse 17, and at some point in each day since, I have found my heart and mind rehearsing "...even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were."  The thought of God calling things into existence...from the very universe to the innermost desires of my heart is just too much!  He not only sees my shortcomings and blesses me despite them, but those things...all of those things of mine!  He digs to the root of my hopes and ideas and recognizes them as an existing substance of things hoped for.  Whether they have been buried in me since childhood or are the most recent seeds taking root, He sees them as present and tangible things.  If they are false, He is not ignoring them nor ignorant of their potential damage, and I trust Him to expose them and help me cast down any imagination that is trying to exalt itself against His knowledge (2 Corinthians 10:5).  But, what if they are not false? 

     What if, like Abraham, there is a plan for me that God already sees, grows, and even addresses (calls)?  What if, while I am laughing in unbelief, He is not simply having a more positive outlook than I or chuckling at His daughter with the wild imagination but is, instead, viewing everything with a mind of infinite wisdom and actually calling those hopes and desires into being while I am still wondering if I'm a fool for entertaining visions so immense and far-fetched?  (Just seeing that in writing makes me feel silly.  As if I could "out-envision" God!)  What if, while I am writing this, He is removing obstacles and laying foundations for works that will leave me speechless?  What if  the world laughs at what I'm implying?  What if I laugh when I read this tomorrow? But, what if God has the last laugh?  What if the desire is the call, and it is already a recorded creation and work of God which He is presently building and blessing?  What if He calls me called?
     I know that personally, I have found myself (like Abraham) questioning God's plan...examining the evidence and stacking up the arguments against the humongous calling of God.  Piling, sorting, and dragging things into place that eventually obscure it. That saves me investing my faith in something so seemingly out of reach.  The thing is...no amount of our denying its chances of coming to fruition annuls that He has called it into being.  The earth is His creation.  No amount of transcendent thought changes that.  A new heart is His creation.  No power in hell can change that.  Perhaps, instead of trying to understand why He would call us and how on earth He will bring it to pass, we should rest in the fact that He has called and calls it as though it already exists.  And then, by faith, we can rejoice that He will have the final say!

     "Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work 

in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ." ~ Philippians 1:6