"At Hand"
Our present capacity for realizing God's presence and involvement is limited at best. "For now, we see through a glass darkly" (I Corinthians 13:12). This involves our weakness, but even more, the vastness of God's doings.
"God… worketh all things after the counsel of His own will" (Ephesians 1:3; 11).
"And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them that are the called according to His purpose" (Romans 8:28).
In a universe discovered to be more wondrously immense with every scientific measure, and in a population of human beings that presently numbers nearly 8 billion, the Creator and Sustainer of all things intimately and intricately involves Himself in everything and everybody. "In Him we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:28). We see so very little of His doings, and often appearances belie His dynamic working in all things. Like Jacob of old, we often realize after the fact that God was mightily active in circumstances, situations, conditions, and most of all, people. "Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not!" (Genesis 28:16). Sometimes we never realize at all the wonder and working of God. "Lo, He goeth by me, and I see Him not. "He passeth on also, but I perceive Him not" (Job 9:11). Even the best and brightest among believers see and perceive so very little of their Lord's presence and involvement. How could they? Again, "all things after the counsel of His own will… all things together for good to them that love God" (emphasis added).
Understanding this truth first sets our hearts at peace regarding the mystery of our Lord's ways. He is doing so much infinitely more than we have capacity to realize. How then could we fathom the whys and wherefores of all that happens in His creation, and in our lives? Upon this basis, however, we are prepared to know more than we might otherwise perceive. The humility of acknowledging how little we know opens our eyes to see at least a bit more clearly the "wonders without number" continually performed by our Lord (Job 9:10). Therein we rejoice in His light, and therein we realize all the more how much we don't know and cannot perceive.
We can know some of the "all things." We can know more. But we cannot know all. Our Heavenly Father administers the truth of His presence and involvement in precise accordance with the need of those who seek Him. This is enough for now, more than enough as we see through a glass darkly, but as the light of God brightly illuminates our hearts with the reality that bestows confidence, peace, and assurance…
"The Lord is at hand."
(Philippians 4:5)
Weekly Memory Verse
"Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort, who comforteth us in our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any tribulation by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.
(II Corinthians 1:3-4)
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