My precious bride, Kim, had her birthday yesterday. It is appropriate though that I write this today. For years, it’s been a long-standing joke during most our 23 years of life together that I can never remember that her birthday is the 25th. I always want to put it on the 26th. You’d think for someone whose life revolves around memory, dates and events, I would have this one nailed. Sadly, it remains a struggle, though in the past decade, I’ve done better at it.
But whatever day on which it falls, it is a special day for me. That God would choose to prepare this woman, and then give her to me for safe-keeping is an amazing concept. He didn’t have to do it. I didn’t have to accept. But I did, and my life was changed for the better.
Often, we humans get frustrated with God when He doesn’t give us what we want. We are so certain about what kinds of things, including who should be our mate…that any deviation throws us into a tizzy, full of “sound and fury, signifying nothing.” I know people who have basically chosen to quit their connection to God and to His people because of how they perceive He has failed to deliver.
Well, the Apostle Paul speaks to this in one of his wonderful prayers written to the city of Ephesus. He says:
I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will give you mighty inner strength through his Holy Spirit. And I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your hearts as you trust in him. May your roots go down deep into the soil of God’s marvelous love. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love really is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is so great you will never fully understand it. Then you will be filled with the fullness of life and power that comes from God. Now glory be to God! By his mighty power at work within us, he is able to accomplish infinitely more than we would ever dare to ask or hope. May he be given glory in the church and in Christ Jesus forever and ever through endless ages. Amen.
Do you see it? Check out that last bit—“ he is able to accomplish infinitely more than we would ever dare to ask or hope.” That last phrase can also be interpreted as “more than we can imagine.” Now, I don’t know about you, but I can imagine a lot of things. And, in the realm of marriage, I certainly did imagine a lot. In fact, like lots of people, I could describe for you in great detail the kind of girl I wanted to marry. The only problem was that my imagination is limited, both here in choosing a wife or in knowing other things. Sure, I am confident about what I want, but since my vision is limited, I can’t see or know everything. Thus, the things I hope for or ask for or imagine might actually be bad for me.
When I met Kim, she hardly matched ANY of the things I imagined. God, in his great grace, knew that He wanted to give me MORE THAN I COULD IMAGINE! Kim was MORE than the things I imagined.
God wants to do that for you as well, but you have to let him. You have to be wiling to accept that your imagination is limited and that God indeed knows best. Trust Him, and let go.
Do so, and you too may be writing an ode to the wonder of the birth of the most precious thing…someone who gives their life to you forever…a being that is far better, more wonderful and truly precious beyond anything you could have ever hoped for or imagined.