Good Monday morning (7-07-10),

Here is a quote from Max Lucado, found in his book In the Eye of the Storm and also in his Grace for the Moment Daily Bible:

“Can you imagine the outcome if a parent honored each request of each child during a trip? We’d inch our bloated bellies from one ice-cream store to the next…

“Can you imagine the chaos if God indulged each of ours?

“‘God did not choose us to suffer his anger but to have salvation through our Lord Jesus’ (1 Thess. 5:9). Note God’s destiny for your life. Salvation.

“God’s overarching desire is that you reach that destiny. His itinerary includes stops that encourage your journey. He frowns on stops that deter you. When His sovereign plan and your earthly plan collide, a decision must be made. Who’s in charge of this journey?

“If God must choose between your earthly satisfaction and your heavenly salvation, which do you hope He chooses? Me too.”

We are all familiar with the term “tunnel vision”. It means we see just what’s in front of us. Sometimes, we see only the things in front of us that meet with our approval or that seem to agree with our specific plans.

But there is a great wide world out there beyond our vision. It’s too far to the right and left for our peripheral sight. It’s just out there over the horizon, hidden by the curve of time. There are events veiled in that dark shadow where the edge of the earth blocks the rising sun.

We can’t see in those places. There are mysteries hidden there: dangers, challenges, sudden precipices, and turns where the road unexpectedly changes course. From where we stand the road looks straight, flat and safe…charted…explored.

God sees the whole picture. He knows every quicksand pit, every camouflaged trap, every darkened dip. He also knows where the road, just past that swamp and over that rise, levels out and eases up, where it is shaded by towering trees planted beside a sparkling stream for the sole purpose of giving us shelter — a rest stop for our wearied soul where we can prepare for the next challenge.

God knows the big picture. He knows the strength, determination, perseverance, experience I will need to finish my race. That’s why He’s not overly concerned about my earthly satisfaction, or even my earthly comfort. He knows the sort of conditioning I need.

His goal for me is salvation and rest. This is why He does not always answer my prayer for relief right away. He’s working in me endurance. He’s building in me patience so I can be a finished work, lacking in nothing.

When I step off the safe and chosen path and encounter grave hardship, He wants that difficulty to send me back to the Way He has prepared for me. If He removed the pain as soon as I cried out, I would probably think I was on the right path. I’d stray further into the wilderness of my own choosing rather than the protected road of His making.

So, when I think God has not answered me, I could not be more wrong. He always hears when we pray His will. His Word is His will. So when I pray His word He always hears.

What I must remember is that He knows a little discomfort won’t destroy me. But it might turn me off a route that will end in destruction.

His goal for me is always salvation. His plan for me is always victory. His destiny for me is always Himself.

The journey is where it is all worked out. He knows. I don’t. So I must learn to take each day as it comes. To trust He is well able and always willing…to lean not on my own understanding, warped as it is by tunnel vision…to live by faith and not by sight.

“So do not worry or be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will have worries and anxieties of its own. Sufficient for each day is its own trouble.” Matthew 6:34

Laurie Gross