"The Matter At Hand"

"What is God doing in your life?" A gentleman with whom I attended church many years ago often asked the question. As a young believer at the time, I remember thinking it seemed hard to know what God was doing in my life.


Many years later, I still think that. It is often very difficult to understand the nature and extent of our Lord's doings, and I suspect we're often wrong when we think we have figured it out. His ways are not our ways, and one thing about God's doings of which I am completely certain: there is always more to the picture than meets the eye.


Our Heavenly Father operates from the basis of perfect knowledge and foreknowledge. "His understanding is infinite... Known unto God are all His works from the beginning of the world" (Psalm 147:5; Acts 15:18). We understand and interpret God's operation from the basis of imperfect knowledge, and no foreknowledge whatsoever. Our Lord gives us glimpses of of His ways in Scripture, glimpses so bright as to nearly blind us at times with awe and wonder. He also frequently astounds us in a personal sense as winding paths that once seemed to lead to nowhere end up in the most blessed somewheres. Still, believers overly certain of what God is doing in their lives are likely headed toward major surprises, and more seriously, to major letdowns.


God's trusting children in Christ operate on a "need to know" basis, as it were, and we don't need to know much in the specific sense of our Lord's doings in our lives. We rather need to trust and obey God in the matter at hand, and in the present moment. A heart committed to this faithfulness will find that "the path of the just is as the shining light, which shineth more and more unto the perfect day" (Proverbs 4:18). One day we may know better what our Lord was doing at various times during our earthly sojourn, and we will be amazed at how much our lives teemed with His dynamic and all-encompassing involvement. Presently, however, this moment and this day command our attention to the matter at hand. Keeping our hearts in the moment of faith and obedience shines the brightest light on our path, and what God is doing will more consistently become what we are doing.


"Jesus answered them, My Father worketh, and I work."
(John 5:16)