April 27, 2020 – Click here to listen
I wrote the other day of the difficulty, if not impossibility, of understanding God’s plan for our lives before it matures. I got a microscopic glimmer of that while I was building Honey Lake Plantation and Spa. When I bought the property it was nothing but 5000 acres of undeveloped land loaded with big pine trees, gently swaying sage, Florida swamp-heads, an 80 acre crystal clear spring fed lake and several ponds. I used to drive my pickup to the crest of a hill making my way without benefit of a road through the pine-studded field winding around stumps and obstacles to get there until I finally reached the summit.
When I arrived, I would sit atop one hill in particular, sometimes for hours, and there I envisioned a grand resort with a great gathering hall overlooking plantation-style cottages, spa, pavilion, exercise room, swimming pool, and two fishing ponds connected by a small river. Of course it had to have a church too, but not just any church, a spectacular one to go with it. I thought for hours how to design one worthy of our Savior.
We began work on it and my workers often saw me sitting in my pickup truck staring away from my lofty perch without having a clue what I was doing for so long sitting in that truck. There came a day when it was all completed. It contained 91,000 square feet under roof and was beautiful. That forest land had been transformed into something that the neighbors would just ride by and marvel at. Weddings, quail hunts, meetings, Christian retreats, business conferences were conducted there and even the Governor and his wife came to stay at Honey Lake to enjoy its grandeur.
I was standing on the back porch one day looking down on all that had been built and my foreman was standing next to me. He said, “I have to admit we all thought you were crazy when we would see you sitting in that truck staring for hours, Now I see what you were looking at.” I looked at him and smiled and didn’t say a word.
So when I wrote the other day that we only see a small portion of what is happening we should patiently await God’s plan to unfold. When I wrote Words for the Day about not understanding why things happen a certain way, especially bad things, I remembered this experience. After I wrote it a reader responded and we had this exchange:
She wrote “Heard a good sermon on this topic. Scripture was the raising of Lazarus. Jesus loved them but waited 2 days to act. I noticed that He knew he was dead without being told. We will never know why bad things come our way or why He chooses to move in various ways. Just trust His heart.”
I responded: “Nice thoughts but I do believe that we will know when we get to heaven. Remember the verse that goes something like this? Now we see dimly as though looking in a dirty mirror but then we will see clearly as Jesus sees.”
Then she responded: I have to share that I am a knitter. Sometimes the pattern is lost until I turn the work over. Then I can see what the end results will be and what the pattern maker knew all along.
“Brilliant!” I responded.
When undergoing trials and things we don’t understand, having faith, and patience are essential virtues and of course perseverance a necessity.
1 Cor. 13:12
Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.