God’s Ability Has Not Been Diminished

If you patronize certain businesses these days, especially restaurants, you really have to pack your patience. Most of it is due to their being shorthanded. I won’t get into all the reasons why people aren’t choosing to work those jobs, but the lack of staff certainly affects the quality and timeliness of service. In spite of plenty of empty tables, it takes longer to be seated, to place orders, to receive your food, and to take care of the check. Don’t blame the servers. As a matter of fact, we ought to be expressing our appreciation even more to those overwhelmed workers. They’re often doing the best they can under the circumstances. They just don’t have the manpower to do what they used to do in the same amount of time.

It reminds me of the question the Lord asked Moses on one occasion. After God had led the Israelites into the wilderness after delivering them from their slavery in Egypt, the people complained about not having meat to eat. When God promised to provide an abundance of what they were requesting, Moses questioned His ability to fulfill that vow. God responded by asking him, “Has the Lord’s arm been shortened?” (Numbers 11:23). God was more or less asking, “Am I not as powerful as I have been in the past? Has my ability to do great things decreased since I brought those plagues on Egypt and parted the waters of the Red Sea?” The implied answer was “no”. God was not short-armed or shorthanded. He could still do great things, no matter how difficult the challenge. His power and resources had not diminished.

We may be tempted to wonder the same thing at times. Today’s world seems to have an abundance of challenging problems in the realms of nature, social issues, politics, and the spiritual climate in which we find ourselves. Are these difficulties beyond God’s capability to deal with? Why don’t we witness Him doing more great things in connection with these challenges? Is He still able? Is He not willing? Where is the God who can part waters, control plagues, and bring revival? “Has the arm of the Lord been shortened?”

God has not grown weaker. Neither is He shorthanded when it comes to sending out angels to do His bidding. Today’s challenges aren’t any more insurmountable than some others He has overcome throughout history. We may be tempted to blame God or to get impatient with His apparent slowness or reluctance to act. However, maybe the problem isn’t with God, but with us.

Consider another scripture: “Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; nor His ear heavy, that it cannot hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God; and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear” (Isaiah 59:1-2). Our world is not enduring the results of a weak God, but the results of our sin that has separated us from Him. We’re not doing what we need to do in order to restore the relationship that would allow a great God to graciously and powerfully act on our behalf. There needs to be a turning away from our ways and an embracing of God and His ways, both by the world and by the Church. We need to humble ourselves before the Almighty and submit ourselves completely to Him.

So it’s not that God isn’t able or willing to do what’s needed today. He’s moving in mighty ways to try to get us to take appropriate action. The question isn’t about what God can do. The most relevant question is “what will we do?”