Divine self-restraint

Here’s another gem from Tyler Dawn I wanted to share:

Sometimes kids open doors to great spiritual truths.

Matt and Andy were in the living room doing, whatever, I can’t remember. Just a normal afternoon, when Matt says something out of the blue, “God can do anything He wants to do, COOL!”

“Yes, but He doesn’t.”

“Huh?”

“God can do anything He wants, He has unlimited power—but He doesn’t just go around doing whatever he wants. Only toddlers do that!”

And, I thought ruefully, many of us grownups too. How many of us use our desires as an excuse to satisfy the whim of the moment? . . .

How many times did God want to kill off the Israelites? Probably more times than Moses recorded. But He didn’t, because He does not live to satisfy His whims. Such is not the province of one worthy either of being worshipped or of being followed. . . .

The power of God is so unlimited and overwhelming, that if His love was not fully in control of it that we would just cease to exist without His even having to give it much of a thought.

That’s all too true. All of life, even the fact that we continue to live, is only by God’s grace and patient forbearance, only because he doesn’t want anyone to perish, but desires that all should come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9). Without that, we’d all be long time gone.