Putting the puzzle together

Was there a time when you looked back on your history and saw God’s work through your life’s events?

Like seeing the pieces of a puzzle assembled.

Was there a point when you realized he had been preparing you to stand right where you were at that moment?

I experienced this a few years ago when I stepped into my current position as a full time Director of Music. At that moment, I could see “training” that happened more than 20 years prior.  It was comforting. It was exciting.

I imagine the providence of God is like that, constantly preparing us, but at an even greater scale that we can’t perceive.

I wonder, though, how often we miss this because of the negative circumstances. The dark times.

Questions of faith

A substantial challenge of our faith is in reconciling the evil that exists in the world with what we believe to be true about God.  Is He good?  Does He really have our best interest at heart? Questions I’m sure you’ve asked yourself.

But didn’t Satan set us up from the beginning?

“Did God really say…?” (see Genesis 3)

Even when we see God at work, life often leads us through the valley of the shadow of death. It’s painful. It’s hard.

We question and wrestle, rightly so, with God’s goodness through it all.  Even when we have faith to believe He is working it out, the accusation that He is not completely good seems all too present.

At some point, we have to face these monumental questions.

Truth to lean on

I can’t answer them for you. I do believe scripture clearly teaches that God is ultimately and completely good. And I can tell you that the declaration of my own worship has been deeply strengthened by the increasing realization of the goodness of God.

He is absolutely for us, completely in love with us, and totally on our side. Heaven rejoiced when we turned to answer the call of our Father.  

To God be the glory
Great things He hath done
So loved He the world that He gave us His Son
Who yielded His life an atonement for sin
And opened the life-gate that all may go in

The Father’s goodness is manifested in Jesus. Christ’s work on our behalf, confirming God’s eternal desire to be with us, is the proof. Everything that he orchestrates in our life is to draw us to himself. To bring us home. I don’t believe he orchestrates the evil, but his goodness shines through all the more when we see how he’s walked with us through it.

Where are you at today? What events in your life have convinced you of God’s good work, or challenged your faith?

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