Yesterday was grocery day. And you know what that means…time to clean all the weird odds and ends out of the fridge. As a family, we have little waste when it comes to eating up our produce, but somehow there is still that two-week-old cream puff that no one claimed; the bruised apple that the kids turned their nose up at and the half empty jar of salsa with a questionable smell. I even had to empty two bags of milk into the sink that were chunky and foul. Cue gagging.
Regardless of our best efforts, we all have some waste in
our lives. It might be the contents of our fridges, or more concerning - the
use of our time. I often get to the end of the day and look back at the heart
work opportunities I missed because of impatience or frustration. And the ever
present counter full of dishes reminds me of how I could have been more
fruitful with my time.
I read something a couple of years ago that blew my mind. I
was going through the Bible study “Lord I Want to Know You” with a friend of
mine. Each chapter delved into a different name of God, but the one that stuck
with me most was El Roi - The God Who Sees. In that chapter, Kay Arthur talked
about the fact that God is not blind to what is happening in the world even
when it feels like he must be. He sees the evil, the hurt and the injustice. He
hears our cries in the night. He knows the deepest, most painful secrets we
carry. Here’s what His word has to say about it:
1 O Lord, you
have searched me and known me!
2 You know when
I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my
thoughts from afar.
3 You search
out my path and my lying down
and are
acquainted with all my ways.
4 Even before a
word is on my tongue,
behold, O Lord,
you know it altogether.
5 You hem me
in, behind and before,
and lay your
hand upon me.
6 Such
knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is high; I
cannot attain it.
7 Where shall I
go from your Spirit?
Or where shall
I flee from your presence?
8 If I ascend
to heaven, you are there!
If I make my
bed in Sheol, you are there!
9 If I take the
wings of the morning
and dwell in
the uttermost parts of the sea,
10 even there
your hand shall lead me,
and your right
hand shall hold me.
11 If I say,
“Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light
about me be night,”
12 even the
darkness is not dark to you;
the night is
bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you.
13 For you
formed my inward parts;
you knitted me
together in my mother's womb.
14 I praise
you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.[a]
Wonderful are
your works;
my soul knows
it very well.
15 My frame was
not hidden from you,
when I was
being made in secret,
intricately woven
in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes
saw my unformed substance;
in your book
were written, every one of them,
the days that
were formed for me,
when as yet
there was none of them.
Psalm 139:1-16
Oh Christian! Isn’t that a balm to your weary soul? Doesn’t that envelop that thing that is too
much to bear right now? And if that were not enough, add to it the knowledge
that in God’s economy nothing is wasted. Nothing.
He sees but doesn’t merely see. He is not looking,
disinterestedly, from afar. Every hurt, every circumstance, every frustration
is a part of God’s wonderful work mentioned above. He is working through the
job loss, the miscarriage, the childhood trauma and the current pandemic things
more detailed, valuable and eternal than our finite minds can fathom.
What should our response to this be? Without downplaying the
circumstance you and I may be going through (or working through from the past),
I’m learning more and more my own need to earnestly seek God. This is not an
oversimplification.
The easiest, most natural thing for me to do is to give in
to my feelings. When I don’t feel like God is near, I despair. After that, I default
to believing the lie that He doesn’t love me. When I don’t feel in control of global
events, I catch myself on the mental merry-go-round about what the right thing
to do is.
Looking up, looking away, looking beyond my circumstance to the
person of God is the answer.
While there are many mysteries in life, God himself is not a
complete mystery. He promises that if we seek him, he will be found (Jer
29:13). And so, for me, I’m trying to press in harder to his word. I’m choosing
to trust that he did not lie when he said that everything he does has a good purpose.
In the wee hours of the morning, through rolling panic attacks, and following vivid
nightmares I’m looking back to His faithfulness both to his people in ages past,
and to me in recent years. My desire is that my default will become trust. I
want to say, like the Psalmist:
The Lord is my
strength and my shield;
in him my heart
trusts, and I am helped;
my heart
exults,
and with my
song I give thanks to him.
Psalm 28:7
If I can encourage you with one truth today, it is this: Not one thing that has happened to you, not one thing you have done, not one thing out of your control is wasted. Your life is not the rejected cream puff at the back of the fridge. Fellow believer: God sees you, knows you, loves you and is working his good purpose in your life.
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