Page 8 - The Divine Quest

The Divine Quest Page 5

and Aaron, telling the Israelites that He had seen their cruel captivity and He had
heard their cries and was going to bring them to their own land, a land flowing with
milk and honey; after all this, they scorned His love and accused Him of having the
falsest of motives. They accused Him of not truly loving them, but of bringing them
out to the wilderness to kill them.

What is the greater insult to God, failing to believe in His power, or failing to believe
in His love? It would have been better that they had doubted His power, for doubting
His love was a reproach to His character. The God who had just brought them
through the first Passover celebration, demonstrating His love for them by sparing
their children while killing the firstborn of all of Egypt, would later give His own Son
as an atoning sacrifice in their place. He would demonstrate a love that would
confound both man and the angels by delivering up His Son in the place of sinful
man. It was this love, a love purer and deeper than anything known throughout the
creation, that was being called into question. Great was the insult to God, and deep
was His displeasure over their unbelief.

If you are a child of God then you have surely been brought to trials of your own
where faith was necessary in order to overcome and see God’s deliverance. Perhaps
you have known a financial crisis, or a health crisis, or a legal crisis, or some other
test where you were placed in a perilous situation. Surely you heard the Spirit urging
you to trust God, to place your hope and faith in Him to deliver you. When you heard
this voice, did you truly doubt Yahweh’s ability to deliver you? Did you think He did
not have the power to provide the money you needed, or to bring healing, or to
deliver you from the peril you faced?

I have been placed in many such situations, and I know that the struggle in my heart
was not in doubting His power and ability to deliver me. Rather, my struggle was in
trusting in His willingness to deliver me. In my youth I struggled with this time after
time. I would say to God, “I know You can save me if You are willing, but how do I
know You are willing?” My struggle for faith was not based upon my doubting His
power, it was in doubting His love for me. What a diabolical thing is this struggle.
What a reproach to a loving heavenly Father who did not spare His own Son, but
freely gave Him up for us.

I did not understand when I was younger that my unbelief in His willingness to save
me was actually a lack of confidence in His love toward me. It was years later when
I was faced with some severe tests that the understanding came. His grace was great
toward me, and He enabled me to cast myself upon Him, believing that He did love
me and He would surely not fail me as I looked to Him. It was after these tests that
I came to understand that my decision to trust Him brought great honor to Him, for
it was a testimony of my belief that He is a loving Father.