Daily Devotional

I long ago gave up the hope that I would always understand the ways of God. Time and time again I see things that make little sense to me with my earthly vantage point and yet somehow make perfect sense from a heavenly vantage point. The Bible is full of such stories, and in reality, the entire story of the Bible is a reminder that God’s ways are above our ways. This can be both very comforting and yet also confusing. I personally believe there are countless ways that God’s hand is at work around us, most of which we don’t see. Every so often though it does seem like God lets us in on a sneak-peek just to remind us that He’s always up to something.

A little while ago a pretty bad cold hit our family. Like most colds it hung on for a few days. My kids were sad that they had to miss church, Awana, basketball practice, and even their basketball game. Last of a long list of disappointments was that their school had scheduled a jog-a-thon. This is the kind of activity that I would have been thrilled to miss as a child but for some reason my kids really wanted to participate and yet couldn’t because of their colds. The night before the event as they were getting ready for bed, we got a message that there was expected to be more rain the next day and so the jog-a-thon was postponed. Safe to say my kids were thrilled by this news. I was thrilled by the teaching opportunity.

As my wife Megan and I were putting the kids to bed I told them to remember this moment when they were excited by the postponement of this event. Normally, if they were fully healthy, they would have been disappointed by this news but because of their circumstances at the time, they were actually excited by news that would normally have been considered bad. I also reminded them that for a lot of the other students, this was still very disappointing as they were looking forward to this event.
 
The lesson I wanted them to learn from this, and that I was reminded of as well, is that so much of our outlook of things is based on our current circumstances. It’s important that our view of God not be based on our changing circumstances. Whether the jog-a-thon happened or not, God was still good and still in charge. For my kids this was a small and easy way to illustrate this lesson.

For us who may have experienced more life and greater disappointments, we have to all the more remember that God is good, and God is still in charge. It doesn’t make the disappointments go away, but it reminds us that He is greater than the disappointments. We will not always understand the ways of God or see what He’s up to, but we can trust Him and know that no matter what disappointment we face, He is right there with us.

English Standard Version (ESV) The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.