I have a small group of women I disciple on Tuesday nights. The group expands and contracts like breathing in and breathing out, but there is a core group who have been coming for about a year. From the beginning this group has challenged me. They love to dig into the Word and they are quick to obey what they find there. They love Jesus and are constantly asking Him to direct their lives. All of this adds up to my great need to have my spiritual running shoes firmly laced up every Tuesday night!

This past Tuesday we got into another of many discussions on the sovereignty of God. We looked briefly at the TULIP anagram for remembering the five points of Calvinism:

T: Total depravity of man
U: Unconditional election
L: Limited Atonement
I : Irresistible grace
P: Perseverance of the Saints (Also known as Once Saved Always Saved)

If you’re interested, you can read a thorough treatment of this subject at http://www.calvinistcorner.com/tulip.htm. As I participated in the discussion and listened to the comments (some of them very passionate), the Holy Spirit was disturbing my spirit about something I couldn’t quite get hold of at the time. I intended to ask Him about it later but I forgot. He did not forget!

This morning, my Bible reading program brought me to Matthew 13. As I read Jesus’ teaching on the Kingdom of Heaven, I came to verse 44:

“The Kingdom of Heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field, which a man found and hid again; and from joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.”

I’ve always wondered about this verse. Why did the man buy the whole field? Why didn’t he just buy the treasure? The parable that follows in verse 45 compares the Kingdom of Heaven to a merchant who sold all he had to buy one pearl. I understand that merchant. He wanted the pearl and he did what he had to do to get it. But the guy who bought the field did not start out to own a field but to own a treasure. He ended up with a field containing the treasure.

As I prayed over that verse this morning, God began to show me something about human nature, my own included! We tend to walk in God’s Kingdom the way we walk down the aisles in the Walmart. We look over the “merchandise” and decide what we want and what we don’t want. Some things we readily put in our carts: the love of God, His mercy and favor, His grace for living our lives. Other things we aren’t so sure about and would like to leave “on the shelf,” for the time being at least, things like suffering for the cause of Christ, sharing our faith with non-believers, turning the other cheek. And there are some things that we KNOW we don’t like and don’t understand and would rather not think about at all: does God really send people to hell? did God not die for everyone? wasn’t there something good in me that caused God to choose me? if I do something really, really bad, will I still go to heaven? When we started looking at that TULIP in our small group Tuesday night, we found a lot of things about God Himself that we did not understand. Some of us wanted to throw the whole T-U-L-I-P in the garbage! Several wanted to keep the T-U-I-P but throw away the L! In other words, we want to keep the things about God that we understand and see as “treasure” but we don’t want the whole field of a God Who is BEYOND OUR UNDERSTANDING!

So today I have come to a deeper place of commitment to God my Lord. I receive Him just as He is, all of Him, even the things I don’t understand! After all, He received me “just as I am” and He understood what that meant far better than I did! When you think about it, a God Who fits into my understanding would not be God at all! I need a big God, a God Who is certainly bigger than I am! I am so grateful that the whole field that is God Himself is my dwelling place. And I am so glad that He has relieved me of my spiritual shopping cart! I WANT ALL OF HIM!!

I love You and trust You, Lord, especially the things about You that I don’t understand.

Gloria Cotten

Gloria Cotten (aka Mamma G) is Wellspring’s President. Gloria is the author of In the Beginning and she hopes to write two or three more books in the future. Gloria loves the Lord because He Alone has the words of life. If she could give one piece of advice, it would be to let Jesus love you.