Part of the Plan

Continuing in my reading of Luke's account of the birth of Jesus, from Luke 1:67-75 NIV
"His father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied: [68] “Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has come to his people and redeemed them. [69] He has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David [70] (as he said through his holy prophets of long ago), [71] salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us--- [72] to show mercy to our ancestors and to remember his holy covenant, [73] the oath he swore to our father Abraham: [74] to rescue us from the hand of our enemies, and to enable us to serve him without fear [75] in holiness and righteousness before him all our days."

There is a sense of fulfillment in Zechariah's words that is important for us to grasp and understand, in our need everything now society. God's purposes are generational, and are played out over hundreds of years. We are so quick to try to fully understand things in our present context, but God is operating at a completely different level. God's promise to Abraham was given approximately 2000 years before Zechariah uttered these words, according to some bible time lines. Regardless of the actual number of years, this gives us some context for understanding the perspective God has versus our limited time perspective. I can rarely remember clearly more than a few days in the past and see not at all into the future. I want to understand how my situation fits into the grand scheme of things, but in reality, don't really have a clue.

For example, I recently have been looking at my genealogy, and have traced my ancestory back to the 1700's. As I look back at all the marriages and children born, and each successive generation that leads to my own birth, I get a better sense of the ordering of God's purposes, for each link in this genealogy and each relationship is critical to my existence. I have their DNA in me. Seeing 300 years into my past is amazing, and helps me to see the greater scale of things, and God's ordering of all.

We really need to learn to be at peace with God's workings in our life, trusting that He does know what He is doing, and does have a master plan, of which we are part and participants. Most of the time we won't understand it all, but once in a while, like Zechariah, we will be able to see how we fit into a part of God's plan. Lord, give me patience and help me to trust You