In our Christian lives we tend to think on a very level and straight plane. We can get to a place that we can only see in front of our noses and make our life all about us. We do well to follow God and His purposes for our lives, but when hard times come we tend to think it is all about us.
The thing I have learned over the years is that God is a masterful designer. Since He does know the beginning from the end, He can weave me (and my life) into the lives of others that I may not even know. This is best looked at from the analogy of a beautiful dress. We are merely one strand or piece and can't necessarily see the final outcome. When we look at ourselves, all we see is a useless string. When God looks at us, and the rest of His creation, He sees a beautiful outcome of all things working together.
I have had the personal experience of going through something like this recently. I thought that everything was going well and we were following what the Lord had for us. We were at peace with what we were doing and where we were going. Taking steps of faith, but always praying and seeking the Lord's wisdom. Then, as we were moving along, things seemed to come to a stop. Not slowing down, but really a stop. God seemed to be working, but not with us. It was a weird time, looking back I can see that God was working on me...more on that in a moment.
We prayed and started to wonder if we had made some wrong choices. Of course, this was putting everything back on us and not keeping our eyes on our Creator. It is amazing how fast one can go from a faith led life back to rewards based life.
As we were progressing along in our walk, God was also working on other people. You see, we as believers make up the whole body. It is not just one person working while the rest cheer him on. God has a masterful plan that we must all work together for His common purpose. So with that in mind and after several weeks, I realized that God was working in someone else's life as He was waiting to give us the okay for our next step.
What did this cause us to do? Pray. Pray for that individual fervently. Our prayers went from focusing on us and what we were doing to what God was doing through this person. It caused us to take our eyes off of our situation and see a bigger picture through the eyes of God. The amazing thing is, had we moved ahead like we thought, the whole thing would not have worked out like it did. God still had work to do, but it wasn't only in us.
I think that as Christians we can tend to keep God in our own world or box. God is so much greater and bigger than we give Him credit for. He can multitask as well, and usually does. My encouragement to you is don't get so focused on your own world and know that God is working in the lives of people around you. Remember, God may be working on you while somebody else is waiting to move forward.
Grace and Peace,
Bob Scott
