IS IT THAT MUCH of a coincidence
that we sit here, where we’re at, today?
Can we see how God has brought us
here, today, this morning, this afternoon, this evening? Can we feel that sense
that God has been ‘in’ our past week – even to this day? What about the past
year – good, bad or indifferent – can we see how God has been leading us to
this point?
Stretch it back a little way; to a
few years back – five or ten. Can we see God’s hand in the passage of that
journey – not bringing heartbreak through intention, but allowing it, in the
belief that in surviving such things we would grow and be more available
people?
And if life has improved over that
past ten years or so, what do we put that down to?
What does analysing our pasts do
in considering our futures? If we are who we are and we have been where we have
meant to have gone, we will most certainly go where we are destined to go.
Imagine the possibilities.
God is part of our lives – our
Provider God – whether we accept it or not. He is the Force for Life and the
Provider of Circumstances. Nothing gets in the way of his Divine will. Nothing
and nobody is beyond either his will or provision.
It is joy to accept this; it is
destructive to deny it or rally against it some way.
The qualities of God are fundamental
to caring for our present and providing for our futures. What is required of us
is plain trust. God does everything else.
The mark of God’s providence on
our lives is irrefutable and irrevocable. What is an utterly good thing –
thriving with hope and purpose – is something that will never be missing from
our lives. How great is God that he cares for each of us, uniquely,
proactively, purposefully, eternally?
And God’s providence is just one mark
of our holy and living God!
***
We cannot see God’s purposes in
the pain we endure – not at the time. But afterwards, with divine perspective
in sight, we know that God neither tested us nor abandoned us. Indeed, the
providence of God was sowing hope all the time; God meant all of it for our
good and not for our harm; to give us a future even beyond what we had hoped
for.
© 2013 S. J. Wickham.
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