Isaiah 45:16 tells us “O God of Israel, our Savior, you work in mysterious ways.” I have a friend who wrote a song and the words go “You are at once an enigma, and then you’re as plain as day, I will never claim to understand, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.” There are things we know about God and His character and then there are times it seems almost impossible to know what He’s doing. We have to learn to trust Him in those moments, it’s not always easy, but it’s so incredibly critical!
As Christian’s we need to be those who develop a deeper understanding of life and the things of God. Too may people are quick to give a simplistic cliche answer to people who are grappling with the gritty issues of life. The life of Jesus demonstrates this issue beautifully. Here were the Jewish people looking for a great Messiah and Deliverer and yet Jesus came, suffered and died on a Cross, He came as a suffering servant.
The Cross is a mystery to so many, 1 Corinthians 1:18 tells us “The message of the cross is foolish to those who are headed for destruction! But we who are being saved know it is the very power of God.” Our natural minds struggle many times with the way God operates and yet, many times as we continue to trust Him, we see the unfolding of His plan in our lives and it is a beautiful and powerful thing. The Cross was an instrument of destruction, punishment and shame and yet God used the aweful tortuous death of His Son to bring about the greatest victory in all of humanity’s history!
The life of Joseph, a type of Christ, also illustrates this. God gave him a great vision, he was sold into slavery, thrown into prison and it was many years before the Lord brought that vision to fulfillment. We like to do things like set goals and move gradually towards the attainment of them, but can I humbly suggest that while setting goals is a wonderful thing, God doesn’t always work that way. He works in mysterious ways. It’s as we trust Him in those hard to understand and difficult moments, that we grow deeper in our knowledge of and love for God!
As a minster and an Evangelist I get asked some very difficult questions. Some things in life are very difficult to understand and explain. I do know this, that in the awfulness of life’s most difficult moments, we serve a God who came to suffer in unimaginable ways to redeem and restore broken humanity. God understand’s obscurity, he was made a man of no reputation, he was crucified at Golgotha, a City dump, a trash heap.
There are so many of us find ourselves ending up on the scrap heap of life. Let me tell you today my friend, Jesus knows all about that feeling. The Son of God Himself, suffered in that place for you. I love to preach the Gospel, it’s the place where the best of Divinity meets the worst of humanity. God reaches out in love to touch and heal the wounds of our brokeness and sin.
Today you may be faced with a situation you don’t understand. Let me encourage you, when Jesus died on the Cross, no one but Jesus Himself and God the Father knew what was happening. When we face those moments, we can be absolutely certain that God cares, knows and understands. And more that that He did something about it, He died to redeem and restore it all. Sometimes we wonder how this thing or that thing has happened to us, I want to encourage you, to trust God, He will come through for you. He works in mysterious ways!
