There are two things I know for sure about God:
- He never works in the ways we expect Him to.
- He always works for our good.
The confusing part is how these fit together. If it weren’t for the former, the latter would be a lot easier to believe. If God did what I expected (and wanted) all the time, it would be a lot easier for me to believe that He is working for my good. As it is, I’m left befuddled and bewildered by His ways most of the time.
As a general rule, most of us try to avoid unpredictable people. Sometimes we even lock them up. And yet many of us have surrendered our very lives to one who never works the way we expect. What’s gotten into us?
Faith, I guess.
Think of the faith it took for Mary and Joseph and the wise men and the shepherds and Simeon and Anna to believe that a tiny baby could be the Son of God, their King and their Redeemer. He was so helpless, so fragile, so . . . human. Not at all what anyone expected. And yet still they believed. Before she even saw her baby, Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.” Sounds like she was too busy rejoicing to doubt.
Can I get to that place? Too busy rejoicing to stew about why God isn’t doing what I think He should do? Too busy magnifying to question whether He’s really working for my good?
If a teenage peasant could believe that the baby she just delivered in a stable in the middle of the night would one day be her Savior, then, OK, I can believe that God loves me, that He has a plan for me and for all humanity, and that He spends every second of every day of every century working it out for our good.
