Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not. Jeremiah 33:3 (KJV)
You know it's funny how so caught up in life we can get that we never think to stop and actually think about how much God cares about our everyday existence. I mean think about it He cares so much that while we are so busy trying to work our way through all of the "small" things in our life that while maybe they are rocking our world at the time we look back at them later and wonder why they were such a big deal at the time all that time He's looking at the bigger picture we cannot even begin to comprehend.
Now I'm usually the type of person who while I like to think that I tend to look at the bigger picture, I've never really stopped to look at God's bigger picture when I'm in the middle of something. It's not that I don't think about it, it's just that I'm so busy being consumed by what is going on around me that I can see that the idea of God's future that He's working toward can be like a fortune teller's prediction. It's there, you think about it, but at the same time while you are so sure of your faith and belief it's not enough to shake you out of the rut you've fallen into of living for the future based on what you understand about today. Now at this point I can already hear the gasps! I compared God to a fortune teller? How sacrilegious!! But isn't that what we do? We think about the future He has for us as this thing as shrouded in mystery as the intentionally vague predictions of a gypsy fortune teller. We want what we classify as excitement so badly that we will settle for creating it out of something that can be exciting in it's own right if we just let God lead our future.
Just as recently as yesterday something made me stop to look at what most of us would see as the little coincidences of life and I'm still alternating between laughing and crying about it! I'm not sure exactly how it happened, but I had one of those moments I like to refer to as my light bulb moments. One of those moments in time where you come to a realization that the life God wants to give you and the future He has for you is so much easier to attain than we want to make it. Honestly, admit it we are the ones that make things like becoming a missionary to deepest darkest Africa more exciting than going to work in small town America and challenging ourselves to see who we can impact today. We are the ones that see glamor in being handicapped and achieving great things rather than being healthy and making an impact in the people we meet daily.
We are blessed with so many things that we take for granted. And yes, I do realize that is a phrase we hear trotted out on a regular basis to encourage involvement in a variety of areas including, but not limited to volunteering and religious involvement, but I'm not talking about the "normal" references such as health, family, etc. I'm talking about the things that we even get into the future and "forget" about. How many of us are guilty of just going through life and never realizing at the time that God has put the exact people in our lives for the exact time we need them? How many times do we make things harder for ourselves by not utilizing the resources He gives us for a time such as this.
So back to my light bulb moment. As I set thinking about some of the recent things that have happened in my life and realized the unlikely areas I had received advice, support and prayers when I needed them the most it was almost overwhelming! My pastor often says that it's amazing how we are able to trust God to save us and with our distant future, but we have such a hard time trusting Him with the present future. It's so true. We can trust Him with what we can't see, but we are always guilty (myself included) of trying to figure our way out of the present problems on our own. Much as a toddler looks up and says "Mommy, I do myself" in much the same way we look at God and say, "Ok, you can step back, I have it under control, I can manage this one", but how often do we end up with a comedy of errors worthy of Abbott & Costello in the aftermath!
How different could it be if we took the resources and support that God sends into our lives and actually used them? I'm not one to make New Years Resolutions, but this year while I'm not calling it a resolution exactly, one of my prayers was that I would learn to look at things in a different way than I have in the past. That I would start to let God work more in the immediate future rather than the distant. In doing that I have found that my entire view of life has changed! I'm seeing the relationships He has sent into my life in an entirely different way and feel so overwhelmingly blessed sometimes all there is to do is laugh at how I never saw it before and cry that He thinks so much of me and my future that He takes the time to make sure my path crosses with those people that change your life and view on life completely and forever.
