God is a mastermind, super-under-cover secret agent.
God has got the behind-the-scenes orchestrator role down.
My mother likes to refer to her “I Spy” moments. She keeps lists of the things in life – the happenstance, seeming circumstance – that evidence for her that God is alive & well & working in her world. “I spy God in the way this extra money showed up right after my car had broken down.” I imagine Mom has quite a few lists stored up.
Very seldom do we, or do our human counterparts in Scripture, recognize and understand fully the circumstances we’re in while we’re in them. You know what it is to be frustrated, verklempt, even angry at God for the messy way things in life seem to unravel. Yet I’d wager that you also know what it is to suddenly come to a realization of how the circumstances that seemed nonsensical, problematic, disheartening or even devastating are seen in a new light – a light that makes clear a pattern and provision that wasn’t formerly obvious.
God is a schemer, and in God’s scheme of things, the unraveling of our circumstances can – and, I believe, always does – lead us to that place known as the good. “We know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” Romans 8:28, a famous little verse for you.
I don’t necessarily believe that every bewildering or broken circumstance in which we find ourselves is inherently good. Only that God is a God who loves to take the opportunity in bewildering and broken circumstances to display the power, love, and personal interest taken in our lives.
“Comfort, comfort, my people,” says your God. (Isaiah 40:1)
If there’s one thing to take comfort in, it’s that in the grand scheme of things, the Schemer is on your side.
