A missionary friend of ours posted this quote on Facebook. It’s worth remembering during this time of uncertainty:
“..the sovereign hand of God orchestrated the events of the gospel and the plans of people’s lives so that the improbable — rebels becoming worshipers of God — would become a reality.”
Just as happened in the lives of Moses, Joseph, Daniel, and the early church – God used world events to reach the people of the world with the Gospel – so we also get to be a part of what God is doing in world events today. My prayer is that each of us are able to see that circumstances beyond our control, even the coronavirus pandemic, provide us with an opportunity to speak the love of God and the message of the gospel to people who are living in fear.
(We may even need to preach this to ourselves, reminding ourselves of the bigger picture of what God is doing and that He loves and cares for us beyond all we can imagine!) The fact of the matter is that when we trust in the Lord completely we will experience the peace of God that passes all understanding.
The Apostle Paul writes these words in II Corinthians 4:16-19 (by the way, these words are inscribed on a stone monument located in ancient Corinth in Greece):
“All things are for your sakes, so that the grace which is spreading to more and more people may cause the giving of thanks to abound to the glory of God. Therefore we do not lose heart…For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.”
When our faith is in the Lord, we are able to smile at the future (like the Proverbs 31 woman) because we KNOW our future is secure in Christ, We KNOW He will provide all our needs, and we KNOW that we can fully trust His love and His sovereign hand no matter what circumstances we face to do what is best for us and for His glory!
When we KNOW these things, then grace will spread to more & more people!