Trusting God’s Directions

I love to take pictures, especially of nature, like flowers, animals, sunsets, waterfalls, etc. I'm always challenged to get the picture to express what I see and feel. Most often, the picture doesn’t come close to truly expressing all that is there. The camera on the phone that I have can take incredibly close-up pictures. If I were to take something that is very familiar, like a rose, and zoom way in on a petal, the stem, or even a leaf, it would be unrecognizable, or close to it. Why? We never see it that close and we are used to seeing everything at once. I had a game on my phone for a while that started off really close to the object and when I gave up, it would zoom out a little more. Each time I would see more of the object until I finally recognized it. The score was based on how quickly I identified it. We need to see the bigger picture to truly understand. I knew what every object was, but sometimes it had to be zoomed out three or four times to understand what I was looking at. Our spiritual life is much the same. We act as if we know what is happening. Sometimes we try to guess why things are happening the way they do. We try to comfort ourselves with assumptions rather than trusting God’s got it. Why is it that we think we need to know the bigger picture? All we need to do is be obedient to God’s word. If God showed us the whole picture and what His intent was, we might try running away. Jonah, instead of going to Nineveh like God has commanded, tried to run away in the opposite direction. God, in His mercy, gave Jonah a second chance although it wasn’t at all how Jonah thought things would work out. If we knew God’s whole plan, we might try to avoid it. If we knew the trials and struggles our obedience to God might cause, we would likely have second thoughts. If we realized we were called to plant seeds of spiritual truth in some one’s life and that no one would know what we did and that results would take decades to happen, we might feel insignificant. The truth is, the more we know about what is going to happen, the less likely we would willing volunteer or accept. God sees the bigger picture. He shows us what we need, when we need it. Father, reveal what you want us to do today. Forgive us for the times we think we need to know everything. Help us to obey. Amen