The Missing Attribute of God
In every situation, no matter how jacked up it is, the thing we need in the heat of that moment is an attribute of God. In fact, God intentionally engineers every negative situation, and every encounter with difficult people, to show us and teach us another attribute of himself.
In the Bible, showing means knowing. In the Bible, there’s no knowledge without experience. In Hebrew thought, and in the Kingdom of God, there’s no such thing as head-knowledge, there’s no such thing as academic knowledge, there’s only experiential knowledge. In fact, the Hebrews had a word for someone with head-knowledge but without experiential knowledge, and that word is all over the book of Proverbs – Fool.
Do you know God is patient? All of us would say “yes”. But am I patient? If I’m not, then I really don’t know God is patient. Do we know God is merciful? All of us would say yes. But do you show mercy, or do you rejoice when people get what’s coming to them? If we laugh and say, “That’s what you get!” then we really don’t know God is merciful.
Take mercy for an example. God will teach us his mercy by putting us in (1) situations where we experience it, and (2) other situations where we get to practice it. Maybe someone will wrong us and we’ll be justified in letting them have it. But maybe we’ll hear the Holy Spirit say to let love cover over this one. Maybe God will give us his heart for that person, that difficult boss, that frustrating co-worker, and we’ll understand their wounding and practice mercy.
I have Graham Cooke to thank for this topic. In his Living Your Truest Identity audio series, Graham asks, What if we can never be challenged by a negative? What if we can only be challenged by the fruit of the spirit? What if, for example, you’re not really frustrated, you just don’t know how to be patient (or self-controlled, or whatever fruit of the spirit or attribute of God he wants to teach you next). What if God actually engineered that frustrating situation because he wants to give you his patience?
I think Graham Cooke has a good point. We are created in the image of God. So if there’s no, say, frustration in God, then there shouldn’t be any in us either. (Actually there is frustration in God – read the OT prophets to see what God gets frustrated about – being out of relationship with his beloved people, even us.) But the point is, if God’s not frustrated at this situation or at this person, if God’s heart for this situation or for this person is not frustration – and we’re created in the image of God – then we must not really be frustrated either, even though we’re acting like it out of our own wounding.
So God is using this frustrating situation or person to move us out of believing the lies brought on by our wounding and our fear, and into the healing and freedom brought by believing his truth. The cure for wounding is healing. The cure for fear is freedom. God wants to give us both, and he does it by expanding who we are into who he is. When we come to understand the character of God, not just in general but specifically for this situation, we understand what attribute of God he engineered this situation to give us.
That’s how Romans 8:28 can say that God works in all things for the good of those who love him. All situations are designed to teach us an attribute of God. All of his attributes are good. Therefore, yes, he’s working for good in all things, because all things are engineered to show us one of his attributes.
Does this resonate? Share an instance in the comments where God used a difficult situation or a difficult person to show you more of himself. Or share a situation you’re currently struggling with – what attribute of God do you need? And please share this on Facebook (or your favorite social media) if it blessed you – just click the share buttons below.
Hey guys, I’ve been a pastor for over 35 years and I was asked by my district superintendent to take a church that was struggling mightily. I took the church for No pay and probably contributed on average $20,000 a year. and I pastored there for three years. It just didn’t make it.
I was emotionally devastated to pastor a church that closed. I connected with the new pastor from a different denomination who bought the building. I consulted with him in regards to my file cabinet that basically held all my pastoral treasures, outside of books. I told him it was too devastating for me at the moment to bring to my house. I asked if he would allow me to keep it in a part of the church that he wasn’t using and hadn’t anticipated using for a while. He said “No problem, I would be happy to have you leave it here”. At the point where I felt that I could now bring it to my home, I contacted him. He said “Oh I thought you didn’t want that anymore and we threw away the file cabinet and everything in it”. I felt a kick in the stomach that seemed to have multiple facets of pain. But I said “OK Lord, you knew before the world began that those things that I treasured, sermons, pictures, records, and assets that I depended on, were going to be taken from me.” “Please keep me in peace, and help me to love my brother and learn the lessons you intended “.
Wow, thank you for sharing your story, Dan. It really hurts to have trust broken by another believer; it must really, really hurt coming from another pastor. I wonder if he was covering for his folks that threw it away “cleaning up” without asking him. In any case it’s hurtful.
It’s Ok to be angry about it. In fact, the process of forgiveness parallels the process of grief (because you’re grieving a loss). So you can’t forgive without getting angry. In fact, I have a post about that here (https://identityinwholeness.com/why-you-cant-forgive-until-youve-gotten-angry/). I hope it’s helpful.
I love how you’re really trying to hear God in this situation, though. It took a lot of spiritual maturity to pray the prayer you prayed.
This is so good. I was recently at a sacred service affirming my nephew as an Apostle and once again the family was late which used to irritate me very much. This time I just thanked God that accepting the reality was showing love. I was not upset and I just thanked God for being a part of this occasion. I felt so peaceful that I made it as I had promised. I knew I was becoming more like my Heavenly Father. 😊
Congratulations to your nephew! I understand your irritation; habitual lateness of certain family and friends drives me nuts, too. So many times I’ve prayed the equivalent of “God, give me patience right now!” 🙂 Thank you for sharing your story, Charlene. I think God uses you to powerfully inspire others.
I’ve been upset with someone close to me for losing one of my favorite Christian books, which I lent her. It would be easy to shrug it off if the book didn’t mean something to me and if it was still in print. I’ve been having trouble forgiving her for it, especially since she doesn’t seem to think it was a big deal. I suppose this is a good opportunity to practice forgiveness AND detachment from material things…
Randi,
The issue’s not the book. It’s the lack of honoring. I’ve heard someone say, “If you’d steal a penny, you’d rob a bank.” It’s not the magnitude that’s the problem. It’s the heart issue. Your friend is dishonoring you by disrespecting your things, especially a special thing. Honoring others is the currency of the Kingdom, of which the fruit of the spirit are all just examples.
So my counsel to you would be to not ignore it. For her sake; she has a heart issue. Maybe God wants to use you to speak loving correction, unto life, into her life.
I would encourage you to talk to her about it. Maybe something like, “I’m angry with you for losing my book! This affects our relationship. I can’t trust you now and I want to be able to trust you and I’m upset that I can’t!” Let her see you care about the relationship with her, and are upset about something that negatively affects it.
Love and forgiveness doesn’t mean ignoring stuff, especially when it belies a heart issue. Sometimes the harder thing is to having the conversation. So often the Holy Spirit is in the risk.
Anyway, I hope this was helpful to you in noodling through it. You hear the Holy Spirit really well, Randi. I have no doubt he’ll show you how to handle this. He’s a genius at this stuff.
Part of the problem is she claims she doesn’t even remember me giving it to her. I’m not sure how all this happened. XD Anyway, yes, prayer is needed.
Hi Randi, No idea if you’ll see this. . .
I’ve had something similar happen with a couple precious-to-me book treasures too. Ones I had annotated at unique times in my life, that couldn’t be replicated, even if I purchased a replacement (nearly always possible via used book sellers, by the way. If a North American or Brit published title, at least.)
Anyways, I knew my treasures were lost. And it was Too Important to me to let it stay that way. So I prayed, to the God who knows how to reconstruct life out of lostness, again and again. It’s one of His specialties – lol!
I reckoned that even if the books had been thrown away, discarded into the waste heap — months, or even years ago by the people; even unintentionally — that the God who knows how to resurrect dead things and bring them back to life could put my two precious books back together, bring them back “to life” too, so to speak. Even from a garbage heap that they presumably ended up in, months ago. Years, in one case, when I finally figured out how to pray about it.
And you know what? He did.
Several months — a few years in one case — the people suddenly “found” the precious books and gave them back to me.
In the second case I got to testify to the unbelieving person, regarding my prayer. Giving her something unusual to think about, for sure.
In both cases I was ecstatic, knowing the Lord had heard my prayer and acted, as a sign of His unending love and interest in me and, of all things, even my precious books.
What an amazing God we have!
Blessings and grace to you, as you continue discovering how to journey with this AMAZING, holy, and utterly loving God of ours. (No small discovery, that one, huh?)
Thank you so much Naomi! I’m sure Randi will appreciate your comments as much as I do. The people comes in when… What happens if she never gets her books back? That’s when we find out how much we value our connection with the other person, and them with us. Seeing that they lost a keep sake of ours, they shouldn’t discount the value of our keepsake and discount our pain. If they value t.\heir connection with us, they should offer some form of restitution, even if they legitimately think we’ll being silly. Because it’s not about the keepsake — it’s about the pain they did to us by breaking our trust. If they value their connection with us, they won’t be able to sleep at night with that. They’ll do whatever restitution it takes to repair the connection.