My little girl has got this thing going now. Out of the blue she’ll just blurt out “Holy! Holy! Holy!” Everytime she does it jerks my mind back to Isaiah 6 where Isaiah sees the Lord in all of his glory and the Seraphs that flutter with two of their six wings around the throne. As they do these flaming angels proclaim “Holy! Holy! Holy!” The bass in their voices is so intense and vibrato so strong that it shakes the floors of the temple…a divine earthquake if you will.
While my little girl has more “Dora” in her voice than bass it still causes an earthquake in my heart. An earthquake in the sense that it kind of freaks me out. It makes me remember his awesome and absolute purity, his “otherness”, uniqueness, even (and I mean this in the holiest of ways) weirdness. To the puny human brain God’s actions and character sometimes seems, well, weird.
Why does God allow evil in the world? Weird.
Why would God let a mass murderer execute 32 innocent people at Virginia Tech last week? Weird.
Why does God allow sin in this country and across the globe to spiral out of control? Weird.
But as the prophet reminds us (Isaiah not Mohammed) that as the heavens are higher than the earth so are God’s thoughts higher than our thoughts. What we perceive to be weird is standard operation procedure in heaven. And what is S.O.P. in heaven is pure, unadulterated wisdom at work.
As we can see throughout the story of the Bible what people perceive to be the weirdness of God at work is truly his sovereign, all-knowing, holy will at work. He does not cause the evil in the human heart. But he allows it. And he uses it to pour out his grace on those who look up to him for help, pour out judgment on those who don’t and bring maximum glory to his name.
Last night as tucked Kailey into bed she blurted out “Not holy! Not holy! Not holy!” and I didn’t think of God. I thought of myself. I thought of how often I fall short of his righteous standard. I thought of how weird we must seem to God. Why do we so often run from him and his holiness (the only relationship that will truly bring us lasting joy) and run to our own devices.
Weird.
I wonder what Kailey is going to say today?
