This is hard stuff. Are you ready for some hard stuff?

I’ve been paused on this verse for several days. I’ve been wrestling. I’ve been reading commentaries and thinking about all I’ve seen God do and know Him to be.

Still, I can’t fully wrap my mind around these words God had the beloved disciple, John, record—

“Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.” 1 John 5:13-14

I’ve seen God answer prayers.
I know nothing is impossible for Him.

I know He wants us to pray according to His will and that studying the Word helps me to do this.

I’ve watched Him bring beauty from ashes and absolutely surprise me with miracles I never thought possible.

But I also know His ways are not my ways. His timing is not my timing.

What’s more, I don’t fully understand how these words by John about asking for things in God’s will apply to things like asking for a prodigal to come home when that prodigal also has a free will.

I know God does not want anyone to perish. I know He’s at work doing whatever He pleases. But I also know He gave us a free will to choose to love and follow Him or not.

Honestly, sometimes I’ve wished God hadn’t given us a free will. But would that be real love?

Is it not true that, “to love something is to let it go. If it comes back to you it’s yours. If it does not, it never was”?

I don’t understand how anyone could choose not to love and follow the One who died for us given such a glorious choice. But I know God will not force Himself upon us. He didn’t create robots who have to love Him—no, He created living breathing hearts with a choice.

And that’s a marvelous thing and a terrifying thing —this freedom God gave us all to choose.

If you love a lost person you may have desperately wished your loved one didn’t have the option to make a terrible choice to refuse God.

If you’re a parent of a prodigal, you’ve probably begged God, through tears, to make them come home.

Oh our God is a pursuing God and for that we can pray. Yes, He will give us His words and help us know what to say, and not to say, to the lost and wayward among us.

But just like everything else in His Word, we have to take the whole counsel of God’s Word.

We have to read the Bible for what it is and not for what we want it to be. (Childers).

What’s more, there are things about God that we just don’t understand yet. Perhaps, He is helping us to trust Him more.

I also believe there are things we will never understand.

Perhaps He is helping us know He is the marvelous, mysterious GREAT I Am who cannot be controlled or defined.

While I can’t predict God, nor treat Him like a genie-in-a-bottle, this I know, He is good. His love is perfect.

And as Peter said to Jesus, after watching many who had heard truth turn back and not follow Christ, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. Also we have come to believe that You are the Christ the Son of the living God.” (John 6:68).

Where else would I go?
Whom else would I choose?
Even when I don’t understand.
Even when others,
even others I love,
choose to walk away.
I will trust and follow Him.

read1John

Note – this is a continuation of my study of 1 John.

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