Speaking with an elderly lady in the midst of suffering, I hung up the phone yesterday after spending some time wanting to identify with her in her pain. I’ve learned over the years that sometimes knowing that someone else listened to us, sought to understand our struggle and took a few moments of time to remind us that we are not alone in our life-battles can make an incredible difference along this journey. This precious lady was suffering physically, relationally and spiritually. She’s a believer, by the way. This sweet daughter of God in her eighties told me with no veneer that she struggles to trust that God still loves her. The pain has grown so strong in her life that she is weary of wanting to believe Him through it all. As I hung up the phone it occurred to me that most all of us have been there before. What is the invisible God doing and why won’t He make things so clear that we don’t have to wrestle with our anxiety about life?
“Jesus answered him, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.” – John 13:7 {ESV}
Many of you need to go back and read slowly the words of Jesus above. He was speaking to Peter, that stubborn, self-assured disciple. Peter was often desiring to run the show, to hold the reins, to be in charge and to instruct his Savior in how things ought to be. Jesus never allowed Peter to occupy that seat of control and authority. Peter was limited in his grasp of what was happening. Peter was an impulsive person living for the present with tunnel vision. Peter would always want to steer things in a direction that served his own agenda. The big disciple was sometimes dull to the deeper work that his Lord was seeking to accomplish but he had a hard time accepting the fact that Jesus knew better than him what the best path was.
Peter was just like you.
Can I encourage you to accept the truth that there are seasons that God doesn’t allow you to understand fully what He’s doing with you? He is active, working toward His determined end, unwilling to communicate to you in detail the explanation you are desiring. He is exercising His sovereign right to be the God who is not required to provide you a syllabus or chapter summaries as your life unfolds. Amazingly, He works this way for your own good and His proven methods result in our depending more deeply upon what He has said than what we can understand by observing His ways. When Jesus declared to Peter that Peter was ignorant of His present activity, the Savior then added that Peter would understand it sometime in the future. It is not that God is cruelly leaving you in the dark to mess with your head; He is developing your faith – the faith all Christians profess to possess. Somewhere along this pilgrimage we must come to the permanent conclusion that we really aren’t in charge. God doesn’t need your advice and it serves us best to focus on trusting His character when we cannot trace His hand. If you will slow down and become still and quiet you will be able to discern in the midst of your confusion that your Shepherd whispers right into your ear,
“I know you are struggling to grasp what I’m doing in your life today. I want you to know that I’m acting in love and preparing something significant. You are My precious one and you will have full understanding about all of this a little later on. Will you give yourself fully to Me right now? Will you trust Me?”
How can we say no to Him? Where would we turn if we cannot continue to turn to Him? Sometimes when I turn to Him, He sees my tear-streaked cheeks. At other times He sees worry lines that have become more pronounced during days when it’s challenging to find rest in my soul. On occasion He has watched me avert my eyes from His own because I’m struggling with doubting Him when I know I’m not supposed to. My desire for you and for me is that, when Jesus looks at you in the hour of your perplexity, He will see looking back at Him eyes full of eager anticipation, childlike trust, complete vulnerability and pure expectation that the answer we need is found in His promises instead of His explanations. I think that, should He see that in our eyes, He will also see a smile on our lips.
Therefore, child of God, be patient. He knows where you are even if you do not. He’s not trying to figure it all out – He’s writing your story with !’s , not ?’s. It’s okay that you do not comprehend all that is happening right now because He has actually designed it that way. Trust Him for today…you will certainly understand it all soon enough.