God is God and I Am Not!

I think that the song “God is God” by Steven Curtis Chapman is one of my new favorites. The words are so poignant and deep and yet are very easy to relate to everyday life. Here are the lyrics:

And the pain falls like a curtain
On the things I once called certain
And I have to say the words I fear the most
I just don’t know

And the questions without answers
Come and paralyze the dancer
So I stand here on the stage afraid to move
Afraid to fall, oh, but fall I must
On this truth that my life has been formed from the dust

God is God and I am not
I can only see a part of the picture He’s painting
God is God and I am man
So I’ll never understand it all
For only God is God

And the sky begins to thunder
And I’m filled with awe and wonder
‘Til the only burning question that remains
Is who am I?

Can I form a single mountain?
Take the stars in hand and count them?
Can I even take a breath without God giving it to me?
He is first and last before all that has been
Beyond all that will pass

Oh, how great are the riches of His wisdom and knowledge
How unsearchable for to Him and through
Him and from Him are all things

So let us worship before the throne
Of the One who is worthy of worship alone.

(Various sections pulled from Romans 11:33-36; Psalm 8:3-4; 95:3-6; 103:13-22.)

It is so easy for us (me especially) to fear the unknown and it can be hard for us to admit that we have uncertainties or are afraid of the unknown. I strongly believe that the Devil uses doubt and uncertainty to paralyze us and to cause us to despair. There are times when we are afraid to move forward; afraid to fall into our Lord’s arms because it will reveal that we are dependent upon Him; but we MUST be dependent upon the Lord and we MUST fall on His strength. The chorus is probably my favorite part of the whole song! It is such a good reminder to us that we are not God, we never were God, and we never will be God. We are even reminded that we are man; we are frail creatures that were formed from the dust and will return to dust when we die. I love verse 14 in Psalm 103 which says, “For He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust.” God knows exactly how we are made; He knows our limits and He is patient with us because He remembers that we are only dust, that we are feeble and frail. The chapter continues on to say, “As for man, his days are like grass; he flourishes like a flower of the field; for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more.” Man will not last; his life is short, BUT , the verse continues, “BUT the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him.” (vs. 15-17a) God is eternal; He is steady; He is everlasting and will never change! Though we will have uncertainties and fears, God will be steadfast.

My favorite part of the chorus is the part that says “I can only see a part of the picture He’s painting.” This past January, I was reminded of this great truth when my roommate and I – along with some other people from Master’s – went hiking at Vasquez Rocks here in California. When we were down on the ground, the rocks looked daunting and colossal; they looked almost impossible to climb, but we went ahead and climbed them anyways, taking one step at a time. (I already knew the climb was not bad at all, but the appearance of the climb instigated this small epiphany.) On the ground, the park also looked like a confusing conglomeration of paths that went every which way with no purpose or direction; it seemed like one could get lost easily in the disarray of paths. However, once we reached the very top of the rocks we sat and surveyed our surroundings. From on top, the climb did not look nearly as hard as before and it did not look nearly as high; the chaos of the paths all made sense from the top; we could see where they were going and could see that they did have certain purposes. I felt like this was a picture of how God views all of life. As frail humans, we stand at the bottom of life, confused by the many paths of life and terrified by the enormous trials that loom above us; we have no idea how we will find our way or how we will surmount the trials which lie before us. And yet, when we trust the Lord, He brings us to the top of them and He leads us on the right paths. Although there may be things in this life that we will never find out as to why they happened, there are times when God allows us to have a glimpse of His big picture; He reveals to us a part of His painting. From where God sits, atop His throne in Heaven, He can see all of the landscape of life; He can see where all the paths lead and He knows that the mountains are not as big as they seem. Now, He does not have to reveal any part of His plan to us and yet He graciously does so at times. At times, God even allows us to see why things happen the way they did; He shows us why He led us where He did. And when He does this we should thank and praise Him for His graciousness; and when He does not, we should still thank and praise Him for His graciousness and mercy that abounds daily.

The last two stanzas perfectly sum up how we should react to God’s sovereignty. We must acknowledge that His wisdom and knowledge are great and unsearchable; we need to acknowledge that “all things originate with God, all things are governed by God, and all things are ultimately brought back to God.” (Sermon preached by John McIntosh on June 27, 2010.) And so, we must worship Him who is worthy of all our praise and worthy of praise alone.