Omnipotence
“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways,’ declares the Lord. ‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts higher than your thoughts.” - Isaiah 55:8,9
WANTING TO BE FUNNY
I’m the kind of guy who’s downright lousy at telling jokes. I went through seasons in my teenage years when I wrote down every good joke I heard so I could tell it later. But even then, though I knew the jokes, I could never get the hang of how to tell them. I longed to be funny, but never succeeded.
Finally, I realized that God intended me to be loving and encouraging and someone who really listened to people—rather than someone who always made people laugh. What a relief. It was so much easier to be who God created me to be. But, I did hear a joke recently that really tickled me and which has a really great message to it. Ready? Please laugh… at least smile a little…☺.
MO’S GOLFING
One day Jesus, Moses, and another fellow decided to go golfing. Moses teed off first and knocked a beautiful shot far down the fairway. The little ball bounced and bounced then landed squarely in a pond, just shy of the green. Moses wasn’t shaken in the slightest. He walked down to the pond and lifted his golf club over his head. The waters parted and he chipped the ball in for a hole in two.
Jesus teed off next. His ball sailed directly on target, but a little short. It also unfortunately bounced into the pond. But wait—what! The ball hovered above the water! Jesus strode down to his ball, took a light iron, walked on the water and knocked it in for another hole in two.
The third golfer came forward. He took a mighty swing and the ball shot off like a rocket. It blasted a tree on the fairway breaking its top off, then ricocheted five times between two others, finally shooting wildly to the north—clear off the golf course.
Just as it streaked across a nearby road it slammed into an 18-wheeler and bounced completely out of sight. Coming down, it landed on the tile roof of a house adjoining the golf course. It rolled down the irregular tiles like a ball in a gigantic pinball machine and with uncanny precision came to just the right slot to catch the only drain pipe off the roof. Dropping down the chute, the ball hit a rock at the bottom so hard that it bounced high into the air and landed squarely on a tiny lily pad right in the middle of the ball-gobbling pond. At that exact moment a large frog leapt high and promptly swallowed it. Before he could disappear, however, an eagle swooped down, grabbed him, and whisked his victim away.
High above, the mighty bird squeezed poor, helpless froggie a little too hard and with a great ribbit the ball popped out of his mouth and it plummeted toward the earth, landing perfectly in the cup for a hole in one!
Moses sighed. Turning to Jesus he mumbled, “I hate playing with your Father.”
Did you smile? It’s okay if you didn’t—I don’t live to please people. ☺ But at least get the greater point of my story.
God is big, smart, and very skillful. The really encouraging thing about these qualities of God is that it’s sometimes unbelievable how He pulls things off in our lives. His ways are often higher—much higher than we’d even think of. (Isaiah 55:8, 9)
AMAZING
When you walk with God, you’re sometimes left with your mouth wide open saying, “Oh God…this is so wonderful. This is so awesome. I can hardly believe it’s happened.”(see Psalms 126) You experience what it says in Isaiah 64:3, “You did awesome things which we did not expect.” That’s the kind of God that God is.
A good friend of mine used to be an army chaplain. A distraught young lady came to visit one day with her husband. Her husband was leaving for war and she had no one on earth to support and love her. She was abandoned by her mother when she was young and had no family of her own other than her husband. She said if he had to leave for the war she would die.
My friend encouraged her not to be angry at God but to trust Him that He would use this situation somehow for good. She couldn’t believe what he was saying, but began to weep and finally said she’d try. She prayed to God with her husband and the chaplain.
As she left the room, she accidentally dropped a picture from her wallet. A young soldier in the waiting room helped her and picked it up. He glanced at the picture and his eyes grew wide. He stammered, “Who is this woman?”
“That’s my long, lost mother,” she replied.
“No,” said the man, “This is my mother.”
Neither of them understood what the other meant. After a few minutes of excited talking, they began crying like babies. The soldier and the wife realized they were each other’s long lost brother and sister! God had guided them together after a lifetime of separation minutes after she decided to trust God with a great difficulty in her life! To top off her good news, it turned out that her husband didn’t have to go into the war after all.
God mightily rewarded her feeble attempt to trust Him. She never expected God’s amazing answer. His ways were higher than she ever imagined.
God loves to do new, original things in our lives. If something isn’t working out just right, keep on rejoicing. (1 Peter 4.13) He who could golf as I jokingly mentioned here, loves to do the completely unexpected. Psalms says it well,
“By awesome deeds Thou dost answer us in righteousness.” - II Psalms 65:5
Never limit God!
Don Miller
