This morning I was going through the monthly routine of sorting out the piles of stuff I don’t want to deal with at the time it first lands in my hand. When the towers become more ‘Pisa’ than ‘CN’ I know it is time. I came across a pretty good assortment of stuff: lots of cards for my wife, stickers to label our DVDs with our name, a bill I forgot about and even instructions for my son’s Spy Watch (awesome, totally awesome). The one thing I never found was the waiver form that God sent out so that he could have permission to do as he pleases in my life. In fact I don’t remember ever getting one because I know if I did I would not have checked the box to ‘let’ God give my wife cancer.
Would you...if you could?
We often respond as if God needs our permission to do what he does even though it sounds ridiculous now. You will recognize the first part of this quote from the last post which overviewed this whole section of “The Mute Christian” but I wanted to walk through this part specifically in more detail. Thomas Brooks is out to save us from our impudence (that seems like the perfect word to describe our response, doesn’t it?).
“Your near and dear mercies were first the Lord’s before they were yours, and always the Lord’s more than they were yours. When God gives a mercy, he doth not relinquish his own right in that mercy: I Chronicles 29:14, ‘All things come of thee, and of thine own have we given thee.’ The sweet of mercy is yours, but the sovereign right to dispose of your mercies is the Lord’s. Whatsoever thou art, thou owest to him that made thee; and whatsoever thou hast, thou owest to him that redeemed thee (Bernard). (I-346)
He begins by making the statement generally. In the abstract like this it is all too easy to agree, to nod your head and to grunt your approval. It is easiest to say that God owns all we have while it is still in our hands.
You say it is but just and reasonable that men should do with their own as they please, and is it not just and reasonable that God, who is the Lord paramount, should do with his own as he pleases? Dost thou believe that the great God may do in heaven what he pleases? And on the seas what he pleases? And in the nations and kingdoms of the world what he pleases? And in thy heart as he pleases, and do with thy mercies what he pleases?” (I-346)
Now we are getting down to business. Thomas Brooks draws out the implication of this fact for us. If God owns it all, then he can do with it all as he pleases. We are disarmed at first by the fact that God is simply claiming the right that we constantly claim for ourselves. And then the parameters of God’s rule slowly close in around us. The heavens are his to do in as he pleases. Amen! Let all those worship songs jumping to mind spring forth! He can do as he pleases on the seas. This is my Father’s world, Oh let me ne’er forget! All the nations and kingdoms spanning the globe are his. Hallelujah! Rejoice in his rule! Maranatha!
And then, he can do as he pleases in my heart and with my dearest mercies. Careful now, because we might have so much momentum going that just keep singing without thinking. If I was writing this I would have switched the order of ‘heart’ and ‘mercies’ because the closest border of God’s rights is our hearts. How many people reading this are comfortable with the thought that God has the right to do as he pleases in their hearts? What ground is more sacred to a human than their own heart?
But we are more concerned with our ‘mercies’ for now. Remember that this whole section is about when God takes what is most precious to us from us. Brooks gives examples like our spouses and children. Can you even say that out loud? God has the right to take away my wife. God is within his rights to take my child, or all my children, from me. It nearly makes me stagger to consider the weight of the sovereignty of God. It hits me the hardest when I remember that God is just and right to take these things from us.
It is all too easy to keep it in general terms and smile while singing “He’s got the whole world, in his hands…”. But when it actually happens to us we want to say, “He’s got the whole world, so why can’t he leave mine alone”. We all love to give God his rights ‘out there’ but it is a whole lot harder to do so ‘in here’. When God exercises his rightful rule too close to us we want to ask him, “What do you think you’re doing”? And so Thomas Brooks reminds us why that is a question we should not ask.
“Who will say unto him, what doest thou? Who dares cavil against God? Who dares question that God that is unquestionable, that chief Lord that is uncontrollable, and who may do with his own what he pleaseth? (Daniel 4:35, Isaiah 45:9) In matters of arithmetical accounts, set one against ten, ten against a hundred, a hundred against a thousand, a thousand against ten thousand, although there be great odds, yet there is some comparison; but if a man could set down an infinite number, then there could be no comparison at all, because the one is infinite, the other finite; so set all the princes and powers of the earth in opposition to God, they shall never be able to withstand him….Water is stronger than earth, fire stronger than water, angels stronger than men, and God stronger than them all; and therefore who shall say unto God, what doest thou; when he takes their nearest and their dearest mercies from them?” (I-347)
It is a humbling, even an abasing, thought that all I hold nearest and dearest, even to my wife and my children, is owned by someone else. This is a heavy truth that I need to come to grips with. Because although it may sound better to say that in the heavens, the seas and all the nations God can do as he pleases, it is more important to say in my home, my family and my heart God can do all he pleases. And I don’t need to sign him a waiver form.
Find what is more precious to you (and it better not have cost money). Press these truths home to your heart so that you will hold them appropriately under the rule of God. Prepare yourself for the fact that God may rightfully choose to take them someday soon.
Me and Brooks 