The Great Instead

One of our daughters texted me a week ago about a big test she was about to take the next morning.  "Please pray about my exam tomorrow and for my studying for it tonight."

Gladly.

In the next couple of days, I found out the results.  She missed passing by one question.

O LORD, I cried out.  Missed by one question? She could have seen Your power in this.

And God stopped abruptly that line of thought in my heart.

If she had passed by one question, WOW, surely God's hand would be evident in that.  We would all have rejoiced.  But to MISS passing by one question?  Why is that anything less than God's hand?  God knew this.  God is working a lot deeper than a set of answers.  God is redeeming even this.

The great instead
    is how God works it.

I can trust Him
        even when I don't understand the outcome,
because He is not done yet.

As Steven Curtis Chapman says in one of his songs:

"God is God,
              and I am not.
I can only see a part
       of the picture He's painting.
God is God,
              and I am man.
So I'll never understand it all,
       for only God is God."


O the depth of the riches
and wisdom
and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable are His judgements
and how inscrutable His ways!
For who has known the mind of the Lord,
or who has been His counselor?
....For from Him
          and through Him
    and to Him
            are all things.
To Him be glory for ever.
Amen.

                     Romans 11. 33-36

God works instead
    something so much bigger
than I can grasp.