In last week’s devotional we looked at the
post-resurrection account in Luke 23. In the account, which is known to most
believers as “The Road to Emmaus” , the risen Jesus comes alongside his deeply
disappointed and disillusioned followers and leads them from despair to
exultant hope. His disciples had clung to a view of God which the Cross was
certain to shatter, and when it did, Jesus Himself was there to reveal Himself
to them.
To finish this theme, I would like to offer
extracts from ( Redeemer’s own?) Abraham Kuyper, who wrote of this process in
his devotional To Be Near Unto God:
At first what our heart feels is that we cannot square
this with our God as we imagined Him, as we had dreamed Him to be. The God we
had, we lose, and then it costs so much bitter conflict of soul, before refined
and purified in our knowledge of God, we grasp another, and now the only true
God in the place thereof . . .
We fancy ourselves the main object at stake; it is our happiness, our honor, our future and God added in. According to our idea we are the center of things, and God is there to make us happy. The Father is for the sake of the child. And God’s confessed Almightiness is solely and alone to serve our interest. This is an idea of God which is false through and through, which turns the order around and, taken in its real sense, makes self God, and God our servant . . .
Cast down by your sorrow and grief, you become suddenly aware that this great God does not measure nor direct the course of things according to your desire; that in His plan there are other motives that operate entirely outside of your preferences. Then you must submit, you must bend.. . . .
We fancy ourselves the main object at stake; it is our happiness, our honor, our future and God added in. According to our idea we are the center of things, and God is there to make us happy. The Father is for the sake of the child. And God’s confessed Almightiness is solely and alone to serve our interest. This is an idea of God which is false through and through, which turns the order around and, taken in its real sense, makes self God, and God our servant . . .
Cast down by your sorrow and grief, you become suddenly aware that this great God does not measure nor direct the course of things according to your desire; that in His plan there are other motives that operate entirely outside of your preferences. Then you must submit, you must bend.. . . .
This is the discovery of God’s reality, of His Majesty which utterly overwhelms you, of an Almightiness which absorbs within itself you and everything you call yours. And for the first time you feel what it is to confront the living God. And then begins the new endeavor of the soul, to learn to understand this real God.
Amen
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