Things I've Learned: There Is A God, and I'm Not It

In my search for a little good news yesterday, I found an article written  by a woman who was turning thirty. She offered a list of things she'd learned in her first two decades, beginning with "Don't expect to be rich in your twenties."

It started me thinking about things I've learned in my more-than-twenty-years, and I thought I should share a few of those things with you. It might take a while, so I'm considering it an intermittent series. (Just so you know.)

The most important thing I've learned is "There is a God, and I'm Not It".

That seems intuitive to God-fearing people, but it's not as simple as it seems. 

It's my hand that confirms the reality of a Creative God. 

I look at my hand and marvel at the architecture of it. Twenty-seven bones, with corresponding tendons and ligaments, are arranged in such a way that we can grip, lift, touch, and move. The density of sensory nerve endings is greater on the tips of the fingers than anywhere else in the body. We can feel and discriminate the difference between a nickel and a dime. 

My hand is an engineering marvel.

The hand was planned, and it was God who planned it.

I mean this in the nicest way possible, but it seems ludicrous to believe that a big bang somehow threw some dust around and it ended up in the shape of twenty-seven bones that joined together in such an exquisitely beautiful and useful way. 

I would think that, even to an atheist, a Creative God makes more sense than that.

The reality of God relieves me of overwhelming responsibility.

If there is a God of Creation, and my hand assures me there is, then He is fully capable of handling His creation. That relieves me of the responsibility of figuring everything out and of fixing every problem. 

During my years of practicing medicine, this was a vital piece of truth. I will never be able to solve every crisis, heal every sickness, or treat every ill. Even when I do everything I know how to do to the very best of my ability, it will not always be enough. People live and people die. I do the best I can do, and leave the rest to God.

This is an especially helpful piece of truth for those times when people turn to me in desperation and want me to "fix it".  That job isn't mine. It's God's alone. 

I do the best I can do, and leave the rest to God.

That may seem hard for those who are not in medicine, but understanding that I am not responsible to the universe for correcting every problem allows me to sleep at night. There are many illnesses I can't treat, many problems I can't solve. I wish I could. I wish I could be everything that those I care about need, but I can't. 

The good news is that God is sufficient.

There is a God, and I'm not it, but the God we have is sufficient for every need.

We'll talk more about the sufficiency of God at a later time, but, for today, rejoice in this bit of truth. There is a God and we are not it. He has the God-job firmly in hand. He is good at being God and He can handle all the God-ness you need.

"In the beginning, God... Genesis 1:1

"In the beginning was the Word, 

and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." 

John 1:1

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In case you missed one of this week's posts, here are the links:  What is the Point of Suffering: Extracting the Precious, Mamie and the Ink Stain, The Blizzard That Was Not,  The Truth That Matters Most: My Redeemer Lives, Truth That Matters: God Sees,  The Importance of Light, and A Little Good News: Working Together.

Be sure to check out my new Amazon Author Page. You can follow me on Amazon.

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