The same two stories have found their way to me lately. The first is the one about the boy with the fish and bread and how his little ended up feeding thousands (John 6:1-15). The other is the one about three siblings named Martha, Mary, and Lazurus and how they discovered God is always on time even when it doesn’t look like it (John 11:38-44). The common denominator in the two stories appears to be having faith when it seems impossible. They both point to continuing to believe when it doesn’t add up. And they both have to do with math. Yes, math. The kind of math where you add something plus something else and you get something far greater.
Can I be honest? Math has never really my thing and I never dreamed I would be writing about it, but here we are, in this together. Lately, the Holy Spirit has been showing me that God does math a little differently than I was taught in school. I always assumed that math was supposed to be a straightforward subject. You have a formula, you follow it and you get an answer. At least it works that way some of the time, for some people. I remember during class when the teacher was working out the problem, this theory made perfect sense. I could do any math problem, as long as it was EXACTLY like the example. The problem came when the question looked different than I thought it was going to look. There was more than one occasion that I found myself staring blankly at the test paper as foreign variables were added and I was faced with something I had not seen before that moment. I did the best I could, but let’s just say there’s a reason I’m an English major.
I think back to those days of struggling in math class and I can’t help but realize how often I still feel like I’m in a classroom trying to figure out the answer. It turns out life can look a lot like a math equation and that math class might actually have been a cleverly disguised manual on how to do life. How often are new variables thrown into our circumstances and we find that things don’t look anything like we thought they would at the start? How often have we been in the middle of what looked like an impossible problem? Maybe it’s that we discover that we have a bigger need than the available resources? Perhaps it is that we have waited and prayed and watched for Jesus to show up and then buried hope, our dreams or relationships when He didn’t make it in time? The disciples found themselves in that place. So did Martha and Mary. And I’m guessing that you have too. No matter what the packaging looks like, we’ve all experienced a season or a situation where a touch from Jesus would go a long way.
I was pondering some of these thoughts on the way home from work one day when I felt the Holy Spirit point out, “I don’t do math like you do math. I AM all-knowing and have unlimited resources. I can see beyond today and beyond this moment and I never miscalculate or make mistakes. You can trust me because even though things don’t add up to you, they make perfect sense to Me. I work using God math.”
This reminds me of a version of Ephesians 3:20 that I love. It says, “Never doubt God’s mighty power to work in you and accomplish all this. He will achieve infinitely more than your greatest request, your most unbelievable dream, and exceed your wildest imagination! He will outdo them all, for His miraculous power constantly energizes you.” (Ephesians 3:20 TPT)
In other words, I think, Ephesians 3:20 is saying that it may not seem like your answer is going to come out right or add up, but it will. Jesus is at work: multiplying, providing, healing, and bringing dead things back to life. God won’t only ace the test, He will get the bonus question too. And in time, you will be able to see that He was patiently teaching you how to work through the problem in order to do more than you could imagine!
Someone special to me recently recommended a song called Four Days Late about when Jesus showed up four days after Lazarus had died. The song ends with these words:
Lord, we don’t understand why you waited so long
But His way is God’s way
Not Yours or mine
And isn’t it great when, He’s four days late, He’s still on time
Whatever place you are waiting on God for, remind yourself that He is on time. Whatever problem you find yourself stuck on, know that He has the answer. He can provide. He can heal. He can mend. He can bring to life. He can defeat. He can multiply. And He can claim the victory! Jesus did it for Lazarus. He did it for the five thousand. And He can do it for us too. Pastor Steven Furtick calls it, “miracle math” because when God gets involved with your little, He makes it a lot. And that’s math I can get behind.
-Only Hope
Comments
Post a Comment