For years growing up and well into my adult years I loved hearing Paul Harvey’s stories on the radio. He had an incredible way of building up a true story by setting forth all of the circumstances and conditions without giving up the punch line. And when he finally delivered it, it was almost always from out in left field… not what you anticipated it to be at all.
Well, I know Someone else who does the same thing.
Throughout the past few years you have seen my updates continually focus on our responsibilities for our spiritual maturity, which has always come back in one way or another to Romans 8:28-30. And as I thought about writing this update I was challenged by something that Oswald Chambers wrote regarding that responsibility… It is only the loyal soul who believes that God engineers circumstances.
How many times have we been seemingly caught unaware by some set of circumstances as if they were indeed engineered by man when, in fact, it was God who ordered up those circumstances. And for me, at those times if I did think it was God, I neither realized what His “end game” was all about nor allowed Him to freely bring it to pass.
All the circumstances surrounding a member of the bride of Christ are never just “happenstance.” They are never just coincidences, even if they are the result of our actions or an attack or temptation from the enemy. God is in control of each and every event in our life and He either allows it or He commands it. That is a fact… that is His Promise and He is there to walk through each challenge with us because He knows why we are going through the challenge and its ultimate impact on the big picture; the picture that goes beyond our walk through this life.
And at just the appropriate time… the right time… He will reveal that to us. But it is never until the end of the story because if He told us up front, we would never wait for the end. We would skip right through the circumstances to get to through the circumstances as fast as possible. But we need to remember that in His wisdom He has given us His Word that He will eventually reveal all to us… in His time.
Rom 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.
And, as Oswald Chambers put it, it all comes back to our “loyalty” to Him: God breaks up a particular set of circumstances, and the realization comes that we have been disloyal to Him by not recognizing that He had ordered them; we never saw what He was after…
What an incredible promise. We are His called and we can take this promise to the bank because it’s all a part of His plan for us…
Rom 8:29 For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.
Now you know the rest of the story!