The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe…
"Wonders Without Number"
Human history is not written. History is lived, and sometimes chronicled by those who witness it personally, or who study it academically. Real history involves everything ever done by all the human beings who ever lived, and everything that occurs in our lives. Recorded history involves the most minuscule narrative of these events and occurrences. Indeed, far more than 99.99% of human experience has not been chronicled. Most of us live our lives in a relatively small circle of people. We pass on with no historian knowing we existed, and no words written about all that happened during our earthly sojourn.
"For what is your life? It is even a vapor, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away" (James 4:14).
Of those whose lives are chronicled to one degree or another, precious little of all that actually happened finds its way into any record of events. The Apostle John declared this to be true of the greatest and most narrative-worthy human life ever lived:
"And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written" (John 2:25).
The living God walked this planet as a human being, living three decades in almost complete obscurity, and three years of recorded history that does not begin to detail all He did, and all that happened in His life. The Holy Spirit inspired the writers of Scripture to perfectly provide all we need to know in order to receive the saving grace of the Lord Jesus, and to live a life faithful to God and people. Of all that actually occurred and could be known in our Lord's life and doings, however? "Even the world itself could not contain the books…"
This consideration escorts us to the threshold of another narrative of profound mystery. What has God done throughout the human history in which He "worketh all things after the counsel of His own will?" (Ephesians 1:11). Let us also make it personal: what has He done in our lives unrecorded to others, and so beyond our own awareness that our left hand does not know all the doings of our right? What is He doing right now? We have no recorded history to tell us, and if we did, we could not begin to process His pervasive and dynamic presence in our lives. "God…doeth great things past finding out; yea, and wonders without number" (Job 1:2; 10).
History is lived, and sometimes - rarely, in actual terms - chronicled. This is true of of human history, and far more, of divine history. This moment involves more of the latter presence and working than we can begin to imagine. What is God doing in His creation? In our lives? I chuckled as I wrote the words. How could we, who know so very little of human doings, begin to know more than the merest modicum of God's "wonders without number?" It suffices to know that His recorded history - the Bible - tells us all we require to know that our lives teem with the real history of His doings. May our hearts be filled with wonder in the realization of such grace. And let us be encouraged that every moment matters in a lifetime wherein our many doings serve as the venue of far more divine doings than books could ever chronicle.
"Oh Lord, how manifold (many) are Thy works!"
(Psalm 104:24)
"And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose. For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren."
(Romans 8:28-29)
Weekly Memory Verse
As for me, I will behold Thy face in righteousness.
(Psalm 17:15)
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