Perceptions
Recently I got in my car to back out and discovered I couldn’t see very well from my passenger side mirror. The passenger door was also dirty and smeared. I cleaned it and promised myself I would detail my car soon. In a day or two, I discovered the culprit on the rail above the garage door. He flew away, but my passenger side mirror was a mess again. My feathered visitor been consorting with the bird in the mirror! What he saw was misleading.
We often feel mislead, even discouraged, by the circumstances we face — an unexpected surgery, an extensive car repair or a child in rebellion. “Unfair,” we think. We trusted God; we’ve kept on trusting like the Book says, but the answers we sought aren’t there. We are taught to praise God “at all times,” but sometimes it’s just hard to do that. Like the bird in the mirror, we anticipate one thing, but the reality is another. When we can’t find a reason for our predicament, we lose heart. But God is still God. Isaiah 55:8 says, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways” (NIV). Throughout the Bible, men faced difficulties without an explanation from God. Joseph, Job, David, Hosea, even the early martyred Christians didn’t get a why. But they obeyed. They persevered!
At the end of Paul’s discourse on the essence of Christian living through love, he speaks of the inadequate, imperfect, and incomplete perceptions we have of the spiritual realm around us. “Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known” (I Cor. 13:12 NIV). As I attended the homegoing celebration of a faithful intercessor in our community today, I couldn’t help but be a little envious of her new home and her completion. It made me homesick and more determined.
Oh God, thank you for continuing your work in me. Remind me that I only see a part of what you’re doing and that my response to adversity is a vivid part of my testimony.
So true; we often don’t see what God is doing, but we need to trust that everything works out for our good.