Richelle Hofer

“If God was simple enough to be comprehended by the human mind, what kind of God would He be?”

Like every kid, I went through the “why?” stage. My dad was always so patient in helping me understand things. He was skilled at breaking down complex spiritual topics in ways that I could comprehend. He spent hours teaching and explaining things to me and my younger sister.

Once in awhile I would ask one too many “why’s” and my dad would say “well, if God was small enough to fit in our brains, He wouldn’t be much of a God now would he?”. And that was my queue that we had come to the end of what my dad could explain (at least to a 6 year old) on that particular topic.

As a human, but especially as a Gen X’er, I was programmed to be suspicious. With both parents working outside the home, we were the first generation of latch-key kids. Our parents drilled into us that you don’t trust strangers. We were the first generation to have to check our Halloween candy for drugs and razor blades.

We came home from school, locked the door and turned on the tv (which offered only 2 or 3 channels of viewing options). With an endless supply of paternity tests, Sally Jesse Raphael taught our after school program and with no way to fast forward through infomercials, every Gen Ex’er out there was disappointed by an “As Seen on TV” product at some point in their life.

It is hard to keep this PHILOSOPHY of “don’t trust anything, be suspicious of everything” from spilling over into my THEOLOGY. When I come to the end of the logical “why’s” and I get to the “if God was small enough to fit in my head”, my instinct is to run… don’t trust the unknown!

I have no problem trusting God when things are making sense. As my life unfolds and things start lining up I’m like “oh God, how cool! I see what you’re doing there! Wow, that’s so neat!” I see God answering prayers and I’m like “Lord, I really trust you!”

But man, how quickly I change my tune when life starts unfolding some sketchy looking stuff. “Um, wait… my parents getting divorced? That wasn’t in my plan! Hold up, my dad is dead?! Not this? I do not approve of this. Why is this happening?”

Somehow even with everything that God has walked me through in my life, I still get scared when I’m going through something and I can’t immediately figure out the “why”. When I’ve tried on every possible “why” scenario I can think of and none of them make sense, I start to panic.

When I panic I try to take matters into my own hands and it isn’t long before I’m collapsing on the floor in exhaustion. That’s where I was this past week. I love how when we come to the end of ourselves, God is waiting for us there.

I was doing devotions when I came across this chapter in Psalms. You know how it is when you’ve read a verse a thousand times and then one day it just leaps off of the page and implants itself in your soul? This entire chapter, but especially this verse spoke that way to me this week. “Return to your rest, my soul, for the Lord has been good to you.”

One of my favorite stories in the whole Bible is the story of Joseph. It takes up a lot of real estate in the book of Genesis and I think there are SO many important lessons to learn from it. (You can read the whole story in Genesis 37 through the end of the book, chapter 50)

Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers. I am sure that the betrayal by his own brothers was a worse punishment than the slavery. For years… YEARS Joseph couldn’t have possibly understood the “why”. He was betrayed by his brothers, then betrayed by Potiphar’s wife. But he stayed bent up, not bent in. He had to be satisfied with “God is too big to fit in our brains” because there is no way he could have guessed God’s “why”.

I love so many aspects of this story but two of my favorite parts are:

1. Joseph cried. When he had to face his brothers years after the betrayal it was still so hard for him. You can see him trying to figure out what to do but he is just beside himself. He’s trying to forgive them, but he didn’t do it perfectly. He did all kinds of weird stuff… first he was harsh with them, he put them in prison, then he let them go and gave them some secret gifts, then he set them up so that it looked like they’d stolen from him,… it was a roller coaster of emotion from Joseph.

I think sometimes we put this pressure on ourselves. We think God can’t handle our rollercoaster of emotion. We think that we have to do things perfectly or else we might be screwing up God’s plan. News flash: we can’t screw up God’s plan. He’s not counting on us to get it perfect.

2. BUT GOD… this is the pinnacle of this story for me. At the very end of the story the brothers are fearing retribution. And with good reason, right? Geez! Those brothers were horrible! They are begging for Joseph’s forgiveness (and actually if you read it they’re really trying to trick him into forgiving them… old habits die I hard I guess) and Joseph says something so powerful. It makes me shiver every time I read it.

“Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done.”

We cannot screw up the story. It might take a long time to understand the why, because guess what: God IS too big to fit in our brains, but we CAN TRUST. Everything IS falling into place, even when it looks like it’s getting all screwed up. Whether we’re the ones who just got betrayed or if we are the betrayer ourselves!

Need some proof?

Acts 3:13-19 This passage… man, it renders me speechless. Peter is speaking here to the Israelites. Remember, the Israelites? Those were the people born of Joseph and his brothers… the 12 tribes of Israel, God’s “chosen people”. This is after Jesus’ crucifixion. Peter says “You killed the author of life” (vs 15) God’s very own people, handed him over to be crucified. He continues in vs 17 “I know you acted in ignorance, as did your leaders. But this is how God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, saying that this Messiah would suffer. Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord.”

Wow! Can you imagine screwing up so bad that you accidentally killed the Messiah? HA! I’ve done some pretty stupid things in my life but thankfully I have not killed the Messiah.

You would think that if there was ever going to be a time when there was no answer to the “why” – where things were too far gone – where you might actually have to worry that God was just going to leave you on your own, it would probably be after you killed the Messiah.

But that’s not what it says… it seriously says look, you messed up, you accidentally killed the author of life, but God used that. It’s how he fulfilled the prophecies. So just repent! Turn to God and he’ll wipe out that sin and REFRESH YOU?! WHAT?

I can trust that God’s got me even when I’ve reached the end of the explanations… when I can’t possibly see any good that could come from my situation. Whether it feels like I’ve been sold down the river and forgotten by God, and even if I’ve really screwed up so bad I’m afraid it can’t be redeemed. I can trust God.

My soul can rest because God can redeem it all. It’s all part of his plan. All of it. My expectation is in God.