Crises ask, ‘Do I believe God for his goodness and power?’ Feeling powerless challenges my attitudes both to God and to what I want from him.
His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. (2 Peter 1:3-NIV)
The constraint on God’s power is not in God, nor my ability to summon power, but in my knowledge of him. When I am willing to be developed, he provides a crisis where I am confronted with a Jesus I do not know. Am I willing to trust him for situations beyond my experience of him?
We see this in the interactions Jesus had around his miracles. He discusses with the person what they believed about him. It would seem he does not allow the person to be a passive recipient of God’s grace, He challenges them to stretch out and risk their understanding of God’s goodness.
The next verse points out the eternal significance
Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. (2 Peter 1:4 NIV)
Power is not merely to fix our situation. It transforms us as we work out his purposes together. He wants us to know him and trust him so that we can release the corrupting drives that fester within.