Day 2469 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.
John 13:7 NIV
I'm thankful for the mystery. That's exactly what much of a life of faith entails. It's the unknowns. It's the wonder about what's coming. It's the hope of a distant peace. It's the promise of an endless eternity in a place we can't fully comprehend. It's the courage to face storms we don't see on the radar as of yet. It's the thrill of knowing that this ride has only just begun.
Now, for a lot of people, venturing into the unknown is anything but fun or exciting. It brings about these feelings of fear, worry, and doubt. As humans, we like things that we can understand. We like being able to see, touch, hear, and understand what's going on around us. I guess it helps us feel grounded or makes trusting and believing a little bit easier. But as comfy and cozy as the whole ‘seeing is believing’ thing may be, you ain't finding it in faith.
We're never going to see what's coming. We'll never have the advantage of being able to plan ahead and ensure that we're prepared for the problems we'll face. We don't get to plot a course around the challenges or figure out ways to avoid the hard days. No, if we're going to truly walk by faith then all we can really do is sit down, buckle up, and get ready to have our minds blown.
You see, God's plans are scary. We don't know what He has in store. We don't know the reasons for the things we'll face along this trip. We may not even understand the reasons for some of the trials we come up against until we're breathing air that only death can reach. But we can always know that His plans are for the best, for our best. And while we may not get to avoid the hardships, we can trust that they're there for a reason. While we may not get all the answers we're looking for, we can trust that He already holds them.
Friends, this faith of ours isn't for the faint of heart. It's going to lead us to places we wouldn't dream of going. It's going to ask us to do things we wouldn't otherwise do. We're going to lose many things along this journey. We're going to have people walk away when we're no longer what they want us to be. We're going to endure trials and challenges. We're going to be left confused and frustrated at times. We're going to find ourselves having no idea what's going on some days. But it's okay.
As Christ Himself tells us in this verse, one day it'll all make sense. One day we'll know why we lost that friend or had to walk away from that place. One day we'll understand why we had to endure that trial and why God wouldn't let us skip it. One day we'll be able to see that through it all, all the fear and all the strife, all the rain and all the struggle, all the ups and all the downs, God had a plan and He worked it just the way it needed to be.
Please don't be afraid of the mystery. Sure, it might be easier if we saw what was ahead and understood the reasons for the battles we've seen. But we don't need easy. We don't need what makes sense. We need what God has planned because it's better than anything we could ever come up with. It may be scary, it's gonna be hard, and it might rarely make sense. That's okay. Faith is knowing that He knows what He's doing even when we don't. And it's truly exciting knowing that one day we'll look back on it all and see what He had seen all along.
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