We’ve all heard the saying, “Momma knows best!” The words are simple, but the meaning behind them is not. What this three-word phrase tells us is that Momma has more experience than us, she has learned more from life, and even if we think we have a handle on what we want and need, Momma is protecting us from pitfalls that are unseen and unheard.
In early 2014, the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, Kentucky, had a hole open up in the floor of the Skydome, one of their most stunning display areas, eating eight iconic and irreplaceable cars. If someone had told them the day before that the floor was going to collapse into a massive sinkhole, would they have believed it? It was an unseen danger that could not be felt or predicted with ordinary human senses.
Momma knows best. And sometimes she says no. You can’t have that candy. If you get that motorcycle, you’ll hurt yourself. You cannot date that boy or girl. No. Why? Momma knows best.
That’s the same thing God says to us sometimes. God knows best. We can’t have that candy. That car is off limits. Don’t marry a spouse who is not a believer. No. When we ask why, our answer slaps us in the face.
God knows best.
God tells us there are some off-limit prayers. There are things he sets as off limits, even if we see only the good in them. Sometimes he explains, and sometimes he doesn’t. What he expects us to do is respect his parameters and not push him to answer off-limit prayers.
One example of this is found in Deuteronomy 2:9-12. The children of Israel had left the land given to Abraham, traveling to Egypt during a great famine. During their 400 year sojourn under Pharaoh’s dominion, their homeland was usurped by numerous peoples. It was their God-given promise that it would be theirs once again, if only they went in and took it.
There was one section that God said, “Hand’s off. Don’t even ask. I’ve already given this land to another people, and you cannot have it.”
What do we ask for that God tells us we cannot have? Is it that house on the lake, the new teller at the next window, or our dream vacation? Maybe it is a different job, and God shuts all the doors, because he knows the future, and we don’t.
Do we accept God’s response, or do we berate him, hoping to change his mind? What does it take for us to accept that God knows best?
Jesus said it in best in Luke 22:42. “Nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.”
We may think we know best, that the church needs an addition, or that God wants us on that mission trip, but maybe what God is really saying is, “I have the experience, and I don’t want the sinkholes of life to eat you alive. Let’s just make that off-limits. I’m not going to give it to you.”
God doesn’t always ask us to understand. Sometimes he simply says no.
Copyright © 2014 MyChurchNotes.net
Code: FGO.B.20.14.vp