Rabbi’s Reflections – Sunday, May 12, 2024
Shavuah Tov,
Day 15 of counting the Omer
בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְיָ אֱלֹהֵֽינוּ מֶֽלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, אֲשֶׁר קִדְּשָֽׁנוּ בְּמִצְוֹתָיו, וְצִוָּֽנוּ עַל סְפִירַת הָעֹֽמֶר
Baruch Atah Adonai Elohenu Melech Ha-Olam, Asher Kid’shanu B’mitzvotav, Vitzivanu Al Sefirat Ha-Omer.
Blessed are You O Lord our God, King of the universe, who has sanctified us by his commandments and commanded us about the counting of the Omer. Today is two weeks and one day of the counting of the Omer.
Follow up that prayer by remembering a blessing from the Lord and give Him thanks. Philippians 4:6 Do not be anxious about anything—but in everything, by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.
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Unreasonable Grace
by Jerry Miller
“Now to Him who is able to do far beyond all that we ask or imagine, by means of His power that works in us…” (Ephesians 3:20)
In his blog from a couple weeks ago, Rabbi Michael was discussing the Hebrew word “Chesed,” which is often translated as grace. In his “Rabbi’s Trail” he mentioned the book I wrote, entitled “Grace Beyond Reason,” and he brought out the simple truth that became the basis for the title I felt the Lord wanted for the book. That truth is this: God’s grace is utterly unreasonable. I want to say a bit more about this because, if we do not recognize the unreasonable nature of His grace, we can find ourselves struggling to receive His grace. Let me explain.
The truth is that, in His gift of salvation, God has given us a wonderfully generous gift that we do not deserve. This gift is so wonderful that it can be a challenge to receive, as we are so painfully aware that we do not deserve it. I believe the primary hindrance to our receiving His grace is our tendency to focus on ourselves and how undeserving we know we are. God is so amazingly good and gracious, yet we know we have let Him down far more than we want to think about. Focusing on how undeserving we are, it becomes reasonable for us to conclude that “I am just too unworthy for God to bless me like this.” Such thinking is what seems reasonable to us. But when we do think this way, what we are actually doing is trying to process God’s grace with our understanding and natural reasoning.
Now, are we undeserving of God’s grace? Of course we are! But we must continually remind ourselves that our undeserving status is the very reason that God gives His salvation as a gift of His grace. We can never be deserving of it, and so the only way we can partake of it is if it is indeed a gift, rather than something earned. Thus, to receive this gift, we must look beyond what natural reasoning tells us we deserve. And so, grace essentially takes us beyond natural reasoning, into a realm in which faith alone is our only way of access to this wonderful gift. Again, we must look beyond what natural reasoning tells us we deserve. That is where grace actually takes us—beyond natural reasoning, into a realm where faith prevails over that natural reasoning. Unless we come to terms with this process of faith prevailing over reason, we will not be able to enter into the grace God offers us.
Here is the bottom line on this issue: God is unreasonable good in how He relates to us. Yet we can so easily find ourselves trying to process this unreasonable goodness with our natural reasoning. How is it even possible for natural reasoning to process the unreasonable? That is exactly my point. It is not possible! The finite cannot comprehend the infinite. Thus, we must all embrace the life-long process of growing in faith and trust for this God who is so infinitely good and generous.
I am reminded of the words of Proverbs 3:5, exhorting us to “trust in Adonai with all your heart, lean not on your own understanding.” The Hebrew word here for “trust” is “b’tach.” The idea is to rely on, or put our confidence in the Lord rather than putting confidence in what we are capable of understanding. Human understanding or intellect is incapable of truly comprehending God, so we cannot put any confidence in our presumed ability to figure God out. We are to trust
with our hearts, which is what true faith involves. He is far beyond our understanding and far beyond what reasonably makes sense to you and me. Our great need is to stop trying to understand God’s goodness and simply receive His blessing as an undeserved gift. God is so much bigger than what we are capable of understanding, and so we must go beyond what we can understand if we want to live in the realm of faith and trust, unto growing relationship with our Creator. We must embrace the call to trust God rather than thinking we can somehow figure God out or make sense of His grace.
May the Lord enlarge our hearts to receive a fresh impartation of this unreasonable grace!
Daily Bread, reading plan by Lars Enarson (https://www.thewatchman.org/)
4 Iyar Sunday 12-May-24 15th day of the Omer Leviticus 21:1-15 Isaiah 57 Job 3 Matthew 20 Romans 2