The crosses which we make for ourselves by a restless anxiety as to the future are not crosses which come from God. We show want of faith in him by our false wisdom, wishing to forestall his arrangements, and struggling to supplement his providence by our own providence. The future is not yet ours; perhaps it never will be. If it comes, it may come wholly different from what we have foreseen. Let us shut our eyes, then, to that which God hides from us, and keeps in reserve in the treasures of his deep counsels. Let us worship without seeing; let us be silent; let us abide in peace.
~François Fénelon (1651-1715)
Moses said to the LORD, “See, You say to me, ‘Bring up this people,’ but You have not let me know whom You will send with me. Yet You have said, ‘I know you by name, and you have also found favor in My sight.’ Now therefore, if I have found favor in Your sight, please show me now Your ways, that I may know You in order to find favor in Your sight. Consider too that this nation is Your people.” And He said, “My presence will go with you, and I will see this journey to the end.” And he said to Him, “If Your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here. For how shall it be known that I have found favor in Your sight, I and Your people? Is it not in Your going with us, so that we are distinct, I and Your people, from every other people on the face of the earth?” And the LORD said to Moses, “This very thing that you have spoken I will do, for you have found favor in My sight, and I know you by name.” Moses said, “Please show me Your glory.” And He said, “I will make all My goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you My name ‘The LORD.’ And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. But,” he said, “you cannot see My face, for man shall not see Me and live.” And the LORD said, “Behold, there is a place by Me where you shall stand on the rock, and while My glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with My hand until I have passed by. Then I will take away My hand, and you shall see My back, but My face shall not be seen.”
~Exodus 33:12-23
Oh beloved, it is true. The waves of this life can indeed smack us around. And the things we face in the moments of a day or week or month or year can seem overwhelming. They seem to be things that don’t make much sense, other than the thought that they are getting in the way of the things we want to do.
We fail,
People hurt us,
Things go wrong,
Careers falter,
Families break,
Finances go wrong,
Addictions threaten to take us out.
And He just laughs. It is a deep and hearty laugh. The laugh of One who knows completely that He is in control. And the control He has is not just some sort of ability to keep things going down the center of the path. It is the laugh of the Designer and Builder of the path (and the one on the path) watching His handiwork both come together and unfold just as it should.
We often tend to think that God can predict the future and can help us reframe our past. And this is true. But it is definitely not the whole truth. The truth is that He simply is. Time is a laughably small subset of the infinite. And all the circumstances (read googols of them) of time and space are more like the living and real four-dimensional brush strokes of a Master Artist.
So… We look at life through the narrow straw of our experience and point of view. Then, in our astounding pride, we look at the tiny little bit of data we are taking in – and draw amazingly stupid inferences on how our lives are going to turn out.
Sometimes though, we get a glimpse.
This fool of a writer was told clearly – in 1986 – that he was going to go to China and preach the gospel. I listened to the fellow student at the state university, but i confess that it was with a bit of incredulity. At the time, i was not much of a mystic, and signs-and-fires type Christianity was a bit of a turn-off for me.
But, every time i thought about China, every time i got near it, every time i thought about The Middle Kingdom – something in me just knew that it was true. And no matter how hard i tried to crash my life (oh beloved, i tried really hard!) the miracle just kept getting closer.
The dream came in January, during an unsuccessful attempt to get a job in Japan. “Turn left.” He said, as i came up on the ‘T’ in the road. And a few days later, we got the call to go to China, to a city – yeah – 90 degrees to the left on the map.
Then came the symbols and signs. Books. Pictures. Plaques. Things people said. All of it was emerging into a chorus from across time and the planet that He had been putting this together for much longer than the few heartbeats between when i heard about the dream from the fellow student, and the now of nearly 30 years later.
Yeah, i just got my visa as a foreign expert, invited to China, to teach Bible, Worldviews, and Honors Philosophy. Nothing could stop His Infinite Love.
Huh?
Yeah.
And i never even applied for the job. It came to me.
Trust Him beloved. Just follow. His Presence and goodness will go with you. He will see your journey through. Tonight is your night. Time to believe Him for the miracle He has been putting together in your life.
