"God doesn't look right on paper..."

Do you ever mentally do a pros and cons list?  It doesn't matter if it's a rock-your-world type of decision or just a simple one, your thoughts start a list that helps you arrive to the most logical conclusion based on positives and negatives outcomes.  The positives and negatives always end up being something that will help or hurt you in some way.

Logic can be such a good thing to have.  Like when your child is holding herself in the middle of the supermarket saying she has to go to the toilet.  Logic would say, put the spinach down now and run to the other side of the store as fast as the trolley will go and take her to the toilet OR she'll wet her pants and I don't have clothes to change her into, I don't want to hunt down an employee and ruin their day by having them clean up my child's urine in the veggie aisle and I don't want soiled pants in with my other dirty clothes that are waiting to be washed, b/c although they needed to be cleaned yesterday, I don't want pee-pee pants intermingling with the other dirty clothes to make them even more dirty b/c I am not ready to put on another load.  Okay, thats it, everyone run to the bathroom!  Whew!  Now that's thinking things through logically and it's just in a matter of seconds that all the thoughts are categorized and whiz through our minds.

But sometimes, we get so logical about everything that we begin to live life with logic and throw faith out the window.  I found myself in that boat, recently.  I have always thought myself a logical person.  And in life's many daily choices, logic can be useful, but as I recall, it's faith that pleases God and faith trumps logic every time.  Now, I'm not talking about stupidity.  You know the old example of stepping in front of an oncoming semi saying, "I have faith that I won't be hurt."  Faith won't help you on that one.  But it will be your ticket into the next.  ;)  I'm talking about when you have a choice to make and you aren't sure which way to go.  One way seems logical and on your logic list you have words like:  more money, safe, comfortable, secure, settled, the norm, routine, it's worked fine up until now so why change?  The part of you that deals with the same trust issue will usually win out on your logic list and you'll stick to what's safe so you can stay in your warm, cozy cocoon.  But sometimes our logic - which is basically our reasoning thoughts - may, in our minds, seem the best way, the way with more benefits; but in reality takes us out of God's design for our lives.  We may miss out on so much of the great stuff because we didn't want to step out in faith.  Fear being a factor that stopped us.  Which deals with lack of trust. But, moving on...

After the resurrection, Jesus showed up in the room where the disciples were.  A couple of followers were telling the 11 about their talk with someone on the road who turned out to be Jesus.  So here they are, getting news that Jesus is alive.  How crazy that must have been for them!  And when they were listening, suddenly, Jesus was there and it says they were so afraid , terrified even, that they thought they had seen a ghost.  And it goes on to say, 38 And he said unto them, Why are ye troubled ? and why do thoughts arise in your hearts?  That word, "thoughts" is the Greek word "dialogismov".  Two words that come to mind when I see that are dialogue, and logic.  Our minds are always on dialogue.  Not a monologue - one way conversation, but a dialogue with our spirits.  Our spirits are yearning for the supernatural, are desperate to break out of the natural, normal, day to day stuff.  Our spirits thrive on God's rhema words to us and His promises to us.  But our thoughts default to logic. And so the battle ensues.  Jesus knew their thoughts.  He "heard" the thoughts of their minds.  What could their thoughts have been saying?  "No way.  Impossible.  I saw him die.  I saw it all with my own two eyes.  I saw him carry the cross and then be nailed to it.  He can't be alive.  It must be some crazy mistake.  Or a hoax.  I watched the sword thrust into his side and I saw him taken away to be buried.  Anyway, there were soldier guarding his tomb.  Those are Roman soldiers.  They are no joke!  They wouldn't let someone in or out of that tomb!  They are probably still there guarding it.  Well, he did say it a few times...he talked about dying and rising up but that never really made sense to me.  And how could it have happened anyway?  I mean, I saw him raise the dead, but how can a dead man raise himself?!  Impossible."  

The definition of the transliterated word "Dialogismos" is:  the thinking of a man deliberating with himself, a thought, inward reasoning, a deliberating, questioning about what is true, hesitation, doubting, disputing, arguing.  Our thoughts are on autopilot to logic land - to inward reasoning.  We deliberate and question what is true.  We hesitate and doubt.  But Jesus was there, standing right in front of them.  It defied logic.  It shut the door on sense.  But it was the truth.  God's truth can surpass logic.  When you look at your logic list with God as the debating factor, it's easy to see that God doesn't always look right on paper.  My husband and I had a decision to make and as we were coming up with our answer, all our good logic came out first.  And the answer to our issue all hinged on one thing - the one thing that we constantly have to surrender and trust God with.  And suddenly I saw it.  Following God would get us much further then following the list.  I saw that somewhere along the road, we had begun to look at the reasoning of man and taken God out of the equation.  My logic list came up against the truth and suddenly I got the good smack of faith and realized that my logic could not dictate the right way for us.  I couldn't rely on an organized, sense-filled list to make sure I made the right choices.  My list can only see possibilities, His promises see sureties.  My list can't see into tomorrow, my God knows all things to come.  Obedience to Him is the only thing that will get us to God's design for our lives - even if it doesn't make sense in some of the practical areas of life.  Jesus standing there didn't make sense to the disciples.  It went against everything that made sense.  He knew their thoughts, he heard their logic, but the truth of him being alive, standing there in that room at arm's length shot logic out of the water.  An invisible God doesn't make sense to everyone.  But the Truth outweighs what makes sense to man.

     What are your thoughts saying?  What kind of dialogue are you having with your spirit?  Get God's truth on the matter before you go for the pencil to start writing out the pros and cons...and all of a sudden you'll find you don't need a list anymore, you just need Him.