Friday, May 20, 2016
Have you ever heard the phrase “Ask a silly question and you get a silly answer.”? (I used the word “silly” instead of the harsher one which is used more often) A teacher asked her class one day, "Kids, what does the chicken give you?" One student yelled out, "Meat!" “Very good” said the teacher, “now what does the pig give you?” One kid yelled out “bacon.” “Great!” replied the teacher and then asked “now, what does a cow give you?” A voice cried out from the back of the room, “homework!” This common situation reminds me of a very famous line from a movie of long ago, “Cool Hand Luke” where the boss man said, “What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate.” Unless he was just being sarcastic, it appears the last responding kid in this story didn’t understand the question. Likewise, this was not the answer the teacher was expecting.
This is a very common occurrence in life, people don’t always understand things they are told. A supposedly very intelligent man by the name of Nicodemus, didn’t understand when Jesus told him: “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.” “How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!” (John 3:3-4) Jesus was quick to inform him that he was speaking spiritual things while Nicodemus was thinking earthly things. If I want to see a program that’s on ABC while I’m tuned into the CBS network, I’ll miss it every time. Here, Nicodemus was obviously on the wrong channel.
Thank God it is not hard for His children to understand Him. After all, He not only walks with us every day, He lives inside of us. On the other hand, those who are not His will always have a hard time understanding. That is why Paul wrote: “The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.” (1 Corinthians2:14) Of course, there will be times when we don’t quite understand things around us, or even God Himself, but if we are His, we can easily ask Him about it. If we still don’t get it, we’ll always come to this conclusion: He never does wrong, He loves us, always does what’s best for us, and He can always be trusted.
Memory verse for the week: (Isaiah 42:8) “I am the Lord; that is my name! I will not yield my glory to another or my praise to idols.”
