This reading was comforting to me: “God is economical. He doesn’t waste training or experience. He knows what we are doing, what we are learning, and how he is going to use all of that five, ten, twenty years from now. It’s easy to be disappointed when we have prepared for 'the plan of God for my life' only to have the door shut in our faces. That’s because we were busy focusing on the plan when God was focusing on the preparation. Watch how he uses that preparation in a whole new way. When the signals are blurred and you are uncertain, He knows what is happening to you and what should be happening for you. In other words, trust God to be God.”
I appreciate these words greatly. They remind me that everything I've gone through, good or bad, is a building block in God's hands. Recently, with the move to Malaysia on the horizon, I've especially felt God redeeming the 'wasted years' of my life, years where I longed to be overseas but couldn't get there for one reason or another. Things that have happened lately have brought some clarity to this issue and make sense as to why we weren't somewhere else when we needed to be here.
I love the verses from Joel where God tells his people he will restore the lost years:
The LORD says, "I will give you the years you have lost to the swarming locusts, the hopping locusts, the stripping locusts, and the cutting locusts. It was I who sent this great destroying army against you. Once again you will have all the food you want, and you will praise the LORD your God, who does these miracles for you. Never again will my people be disgraced. Then you will know that I am among my people Israel, that I am the LORD your God, and there is no other.
For each of us, the swarming, hopping, stripping and cutting locusts look different but we've all had those experiences. Thankfully we don't have to define ourselves by those times, since God, who knows the beginning from the end, sees how everything fits together perfectly and can bring about a redemption of what was lost. But only if we 'trust God to be God'.
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3 comments:
Shauna. seriously. This was meant for Colin and I. :)
I was telling a friend last year that God didn't put a desire and a passion in his spirit for the people of Japan and then leave it to rot. He would finish what he was working on.
The hard part is applying that lesson on myself. :)
THANKS!
Can I get the source (book or whatever) of that quote, by the way??
It's a quote by Roger C. Palms in the Bible Study series by Max Lucado on Esther. I don't have the book with me but when I get it back, I'll see if there's more info.
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