In Due Course

I came across a verse the other day while preparing for a mediation that I had never seen before :


                The unfolding of your words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple.  Psalm 119:130
                                                                                                                        
I was struck by the idea of the understanding of God's will ("light") unfolding and how true it is in describing my experience of God's revelation. It applies in two contexts. 


The first is reading the Bible. Some people approach reading the Bible like a dart board: open it to a random page and see if the verse revealed speaks to your situation. This can be a problem if you choose a verse like Matthew 18:9 for example. Reading the Bible is more like mining - you have to work at it for a while and gradually amidst all the tailings you begin to uncover gold that reflects His light into your life and with that light comes understanding. Usually this is more general knowledge like what God does and does not like, His nature, general rules for living etc. Occasionally, though, you even get a specific answer to a dilemma that you are facing, but that is more rare. The more general rule: the more you read; the more you understand.


The second context is regarding God's will for your life. God rarely reveals His will in a big flash, but rather does so in a gradual unfolding. God is in the details. Over time, you begin to discern a pattern in friends' responses to your issue, or you keep finding yourself hitting the same circumstances when you act in a certain way, etc., etc. In other words it gradually dawns on you what the answer is to your problem. If you repeat this process enough, you begin to know where to look, what to listen for, and that's a good thing. Most often, though, we see God's work only in retrospect by noticing His fingerprints all over, and it becomes clear that He was there unfolding His revelation all along but we never were able to put together the pieces until He was done. 


Our prayer should be for patience to wait out what God is unfolding in our life and to have eyes to see and ears to hear it. He has all the time in the world and often uses it. Don't be anxious because He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it. Philippians 1:6