I recently heard Ravi Zacharias describe our God as the “God of the Gaps.” He got me thinking….
Our God is Holy. That means perfect. I believe every sane person is fully aware we are not perfect. So, how can a perfect God be friends with imperfect people without being contaminated?
Other faiths lead people on paths hoping they might be good enough to gain acceptance by their gods. These paths are inadequate and leave gaps between humans and our creator.
Can we do enough good things to balance out or erase the bad things we have done and thought? Yes, our thought lives are very much a full partner in this equation. The Creator knows everything, even our thoughts. Something that should make us pause to reflect.
Is it possible to do a sufficient number of good things over a lifetime to merit a relationship with a holy God? What do we do with our failures? The gap is vast for everyone!
Some may try to be good, but we all know deep inside we aren’t good enough on our own. Throwing ourselves on the mercy of God becomes our ly hope. We know on some level that our Creator is good and loving, Therefore, He must certainly be willing to dismiss our messes.
With that great mercy, what motivates us to keep from making the gap bigger? Is there a point of not being able to fill the gap?
The mercy of God is complete, but it is also slightly conditional. I say slightly because His mercy is offered to ALL and given freely, but each person must choose to accept it as their own free gift, not earned.
Our Creator has always known we could never be holy enough on our own to close the gap. We are all created in the image of God. And this same Creator made has always intended we would be His friends. God has never been surprised by the gaps that are the great distances between each person and His holiness. Before the Creator created, He planned for the gaps.
The Good news is of course Jesus Christ reconciling us to our Creator though His death on the cross that redeems us if we accept. The Good News gets even better. God is the giver of life and the sustainer of life. Because of that, the gaps in our everyday lives are met with the same completeness as Jesus’ death on the cross, and resurrection from that death. He filled the gap.
As followers of Jesus we remember we are saved by grace for eternal life but sometimes we lose sight of God’s daily redemptive acts. Our Creator invites us to lean into Jesus for the grace to forgive those who offend us, and love the ones close to us who inadvertently hurt us. As we draw on His strength to face ordinary and extraordinary challenges and pull on Him to experience comfort in our daily needs we are allowing the God of the gaps to do what He does best, though us. No other gods are able to fill these gaps as effectively, gently or lastingly as our Creator and Redeemer: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Our God is the God of the every day gaps, not only the eternal gap.
What gaps in your life will you invite the “God of the gaps” into?
