Do you ever find yourself wondering, “Does God really have things in hand here, or is my life spinning out of control?”
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Haven’t we all looked at our lives at times and thought,
“Can anything be made of this mess?!!”
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On the outside, at least, life at times looks bleak and chaotic. It often looked that way to people in the Bible. Think of Joseph sitting unjustly in a prison cell, David on the run from a murderous Saul, or Hezekiah facing an overwhelming Assyrian army outside the gates of Jerusalem.
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How had things gone so wrong? Was God’s plan still on course, or had He taken a vacation?
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The New Testament writers assure us that our Father does indeed have everything under control in our lives.
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Paul wrote that believers in Christ have been “predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will” (Ephesians 2:11).
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In other words, God has a plan, and nothing is going to derail His plan as a whole and for us individually.
The apostle acknowledged that life in this fallen world is a frustrating mess (Romans 8:20–23),
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BUT he says we can be assured that God is using even the smallest details and most insignificant events to accomplish His good purpose in our lives. That purpose is that we become like Jesus (Romans 8:28–29).
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However messy things look on the outside, God is at work behind the scenes in our lives to accomplish His eternal purpose. And He will accomplish it, for His own glory (Ephesians 1:12).
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Even our mistakes, many though they may be, won’t thwart His plan. “Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass” (1 Thessalonians 5:24).
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Like Joseph, we may ultimately understand in this life why God allows events to transpire as they do (Genesis 50:20)
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Or like many Old Testament saints, we may never be able to put the puzzle together this side of heaven (Hebrews 11:35–40).
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But that’s okay. We are not the tapestry-makers. God is.
Currently, we see only the back side of our life’s tapestry—a disorderly tangle of yarn. When we are tempted to doubt that a beautiful picture is actually being created on the other side, here are some things we can do.
First...
stay in God’s Word.
When things get really bad, flood yourself with God’s Word. It’s the only way to consistently see things from God’s perspective instead of our earthly perspective
*********Second...don’t try to read the tea leaves. Don’t try to figure it all out.
We’re not very good at it, anyway. Besides, when we try to make sense of what appears to be senseless, we are choosing to trust what we can see rather than the God we cannot. Accept that we are incapable of comprehending the complexities of so vast a universe.
*********Third...trust our heavenly Father. Trust.... that He is sovereign, that He does have everything under His control. And trust that He is good, that His heart is only a heart of love for us, and that He is weaving “an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison” for us (2 Corinthians 4:17).
