We’d really like to know how soon our world can calm down from COVID. Will the answer be a vaccine, or better education and commitment to healthy wellness, or simply the virus dissipating? Will it surge again this coming flu season?
What about the economy? How will our investments look at the end of this year? In ten years?
What will be different after the presidential election? How reliant on Zoom will schools be in the future? Can church ever get back to normal?
God knows the answers to all these questions. But he doesn’t always reveal answers to us, especially when it comes to the future.
The night before he died, Jesus was informing his disciples like a parent sitting down with their kids and explaining, “Okay, tomorrow we’re going to visit grandpa in the hospital. He’s hooked up to a bunch of tubes. But don’t be scared.”
Jesus focused much of his instruction beyond the next 24 hours, however. He lifted the chins and hearts of his disciples to far-reaching commands and promises about the future. If the disciples had iPads they would have been taking notes or recording video.
Then Jesus paused. “I will not say much more to you” (John 14:30).
Parents pause and hold back information from the kids, because they’re not ready for it. Similarly, God holds back information from you.
- Maybe God is engineering better circumstances as framework for that information.
- Maybe God is maturing you, shaping your heart, preparing you and equipping you before he makes you responsible for what he isn’t telling you yet.
- Maybe God is waiting on somebody else in your circle of influence who needs to be at a different place when you learn what God only knows—so that you can better help them.
Can you trust God with this information management? Can you be loyal to him even if he doesn’t spill all the beans every time you ask why or when or how? Can you let him be himself? Can you refocus your energy from needing to know what God doesn’t want you to know, and instead becoming more passionate about what God is telling you clearly in his Word?
Sometimes we miss God’s purpose for us by searching for the “more” that is hidden by divine reasons we don’t understand. Trust that the future is clearly included on God’s perfect and wise agenda. Let him handle it his way. And make more room for taking action in everything you already know.
PRAYER: Dear God, you know all things, but reveal only some of them to me. Teach me to trust you as your child, to worry less about the future I don’t need to know, and to walk faithfully in the many truths you do teach in your Word. Amen.
FURTHER MEDITATION: Did you know that the books of 1 and 2 Chronicles were at one time in history called “The Things Left Out?” They supply information about the kingdom of Israel that the books of 1 and 2 Samuel and 1 and 2 Kings do not. See this? God left out information in the Bible! He didn’t reveal it all, but saved some for a later time. Read John chapters 14-16 and listen to Jesus instruct his disciples. He doesn’t tell them everything, but what he does tell them is plenty! Make a list of all his promises.
