God is Faithful, Even When We Don't Understand or Care

This morning I am reflecting on a few short verses form Paul's letter to the Philippians 1:4-6 NIV:

[4] "In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy [5] because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, [6] being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus."

Recently I have been spending many hours praying for guidance and direction and understanding God's purposes for me!  I am in the midst of some significant employment transition, and I have been in a waiting state for about a year and half.  I felt like I had promises from the Lord, and I just wasn't seeing things work out the way I thought they would, in fact things seemed to be going in the opposite direction.  I was tempted to try and fix things on my own, but have been working very hard to allow God's timing and plans to unfold.

Many years ago the Lord instructed me through the story of Abraham, Sarah and the promise of children, to not try and work things out on my own. Abraham tried to make God's promise of himself being the father of many nations come to pass through sleeping with Sarah's maidservant Hagar, and ended up fathering Ishmael, which ultimately caused much conflict and discontent, and difficulty.  The child of the Promise, Isaac, was born through God's miraculous intervention and in true fulfillment of God's Promise.  The problem for Abraham, and for most of us, is that we look at God's promises, and see the impossible nature of them (promises) and then settle for something less, through our own efforts.

Waiting on God is difficult!

Trusting God's word is trying!

Understanding the fullness of God's promise is almost impossible in our finite minds!


Going back to Paul's last line quoted above, I am moved by his statement, "being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus."  I believe Paul's confidence came from looking back at his own life and seeing the hand of God working powerfully in his life to direct, guide, and help him fulfill his purpose.  Dating of his authorship of this letter has him either writing it part way through his second Missionary journey, or during his imprisonment in Rome.  Regardless of the exact date, Paul had seen God do miraculous things many times, he had been saved and protected, had lived through beatings and stonings, and still had a sense of the God at work in his life faithful to complete the good work He had begun!

This is such an important point for us to remember, Gods plans are perfect, our understanding of them is not, and our understanding of His timing, is severely lacking.  Trials and tests, difficulty and seemingly opposite movements are definitely trying and yet, God is perfectly in control and working everything to fulfillment.  The amazing thing to me is that in all of this, He is also completely honoring our free-will, and giving us opportunity after opportunity to choose our actions, our thoughts and our responses, and never do we throw a wrench in His ability to complete His good work in us.

I imagine our lives as a part of a trillion piece, multi-dimensional chess game, and we all get to choose our moves.  In spite of our own efforts and inability to pursue the perfect game plan, we never are able impact the final outcome negatively.  God works everything out to the fulfillment of His plan and purposes. HE wins!

So  back to my situation, in the midst of all the waiting and trying to understand what was happening the Lord was moving pieces in such a way that I have a new job, at an exciting company, and the opportunity to stay engaged with both of my last two employers, which will multiply the opportunities for increase.  Additionally, I will be working for a good friend who shares my faith.  I could never have worked this out on my own.  I had a God-inspired dream 7 or 8 years ago of something like what this is turning into, but I have not thought about that for years, nor did I consider that dream to be a promise or plan of God, I just thought it was cool and it definitely changed the way I viewed employment and such. It now appears that God is fulfilling promises He made to me that I didn't even consider a promise!  Talk about faithful!

I believe Paul describes this character of God in his letter to 2 Timothy 2:13 NASB: "If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself."   

In other words, God is faithful even when we are not, or don't understand, or don't care!  When He speaks a word, He intends it to complete its purpose, and He honors His word, even if we don't understand it or even recognize it. In other words, God is Faithful to Himself!  I love the verses from Isaiah where God reveals this - Isaiah 55:8-11 NIV:

[8] “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord.
[9] “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."

[10] "As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, [11] so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it."

So this morning I am deeply encouraged by God's faithfulness!  I  am encouraged that even if I can't understand it, He is working things out perfectly in line with the good work He began in me!  I am encouraged that He will complete that good work, despite my own failings and dunder-headedness!  He is so good He will honor every promise He made to me and over me, even if I am totally unaware of them!

What an awesome God we serve!