God’s Ways

“I gave them your Word...because they do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world.” John 17:14

Here we have it, from Jesus’ own mouth. We DO NOT BELONG IN THIS WORLD. We certainly act like we do. When we travel, and stay in a hotel room or Airbnb, do we move the furniture around, hang stuff on the walls, put hooks in the bathroom, get rid of the TV and buy a bigger one? Do we get a nice mattress because the one in the room is too soft or too hard? Do we replace the leaking shower head? Not likely. We wouldn’t because the place isn’t ours and we are only going to be there a short time.

Our time on earth is also supposed to be a way station, a pass through, a pilgrim’s path. For the Lord, it is but a blink of an eye. For us, it certainly doesn’t feel like it. For some of us, this quarantine has gone on interminably. And it’s only been two months. Was it enough time to get a change of outlook? A reconfiguring of how we see our lives? I am sure this worldwide pandemic that has changed our world is not an accident. God has a purpose for it. I’m not wise enough to know what, but St. Paul said in Romans 8:28 that we can know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.

All things work together. That phrase ‘work together’ is just one word in the Greek, “synergei”. It’s where we get the English word “synergy”, which means “the interaction or the combined power of a group of things, organizations, or substances, when working together is greater than the total effect by each working separately”. Whew! 

Our lives are in God’s hands. Our businesses, or jobs, our families, our country, our economy, our world. It may seem devastating right now, even hopeless, but God sees things in an entirely different way. In Isaiah 55:8-9, our Heavenly Father declares: “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.” We just need to trust in a loving, faithful, good God who sees things differently, and wants the best for us. 

Sometimes when something goes wrong with a gadget, we push a button and close it down. Maybe the whole world world needed a reset or a reboot! We trust in You Lord! Help us to see the bigger picture like You do. Help us to see that we do not belong in this world and there is always something better waiting for us!