Verse of the Week...

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD… 
--Jeremiah 29: 11a

Not only is God sovereign over the plan for your life and mine, He also governs the purpose for which He institutes these individual, yet interconnected, plans. In other words, God has a distinct motive behind all He ordains—namely, our holiness and His praise. Further, and perhaps more importantly for us, the imprint of His orchestration in our lives need not be grand, at least as we define it—for many it isn’t, for most it will never be. But no matter how great or small the outcomes of His divine direction, we can find fulfillment and satisfaction merely in His attention to our details. After all, the same God who stretched out the heavens and laid the foundations of the Earth has considered each of us—who we are and who we’re to become.

Now when most Christians search for the mark of the hand of God on their life, they often only look for the great and marvelous. Almost like if the evidence isn’t epic or the outward expression explicit, meaning drawing the attention of a crowd, then God wasn’t behind it. But nothing could be further from the truth. Sure there have been and will be times when God ushers certain individuals straight into the limelight to be His instruments of monumental change or movement, but His work in the much more ordinary and less heralded lives is still His work. No less purposeful. No less for His praise.

Maybe we need a better grip on this. Because if we’re blinded to His sovereignty by the light of His amazing works in and through the select few, we’re flat out missing out. We’re missing His unique, and equally significant, handiwork in our lives, certainly, but more importantly, we’re missing a major opportunity to praise the Great Conductor, robbing Him of due glory. This is simply not right. But how do we change? How do we cease to be thieves and, in view of the seemingly common, get down on our knees? There’s a two-part answer.

First, to embrace our holiness and declare His magnificence, we must simply acknowledge His often outwardly hidden orchestration. We’ve got to accept that we may not notice His perfect ordination much at all. And we’ve got to be okay with the possibility of never fully understanding why this or that did or didn’t occur in our life. Even more though, we must grasp that God’s purposes behind the trials of some are ultra recognizable in the eyes of the world (see the lives of Joseph or Moses or Paul), but some just aren’t…and they’re no less His purposes. Consequently, then, when God prescribes our hardship without the apparent trappings of ‘significance,’ He’s no less worthy of our worship, not by a long shot.

Secondly, we’ve got to pray that if God wouldn’t give us eyes to see His sovereignty, then He’d certainly give us hearts to understand it. So it boils down to the gracious gift of faith—helpings of which He’s steadfast to continually heap upon us should we ask. And not just faith to know He’s behind everything that happens, good or bad. But faith that He has a purpose for ordaining the job loss or disease affliction or premature death of someone close, though it may not be grand or glorious in our sight, if traceable at all. When we have this measure of faith we’re prepared to respond obediently to any hand God deals us. And when we do, we simultaneously evidence our holiness and lift His praise.

One quick aside before concluding. I made the point that, to us, God’s divine purposes for our suffering may seem insignificant, especially when compared to the grand stage to which similar hardships elevate others. But they are no less noteworthy to our God. When He examines His appointments for His children, great or small, all He sees are His appointments. All equally consequential. All equally glorious. All equally ordained for the praise of His Name.

Grace to you, to embrace His sovereignty in the seemingly great and small,

Voice of another