SEEING THE HAND OF GOD

Psalm 119:18

    Open my eyes that I may see

        wonderful things in your law.

                                I was reflecting the other night on different events in my life where I saw God’s hand at work in my life. I was able to come up with a list of over a dozen specific incidences. In the majority of cases, I was able to see God only as I looked back and reflected upon the event. On several occasions I could see how God protected my life, such as when I crashed my bike into a moving car or when I spun out on the freeway doing 70 mph. In other cases, I saw how God provided exactly what I needed at just the right time, such as when He opened the door for me to work at Samaritan hospital. I could also see how God was directing my path from being selected as a junior counselor at Stony Glen Camp by Charlie Steward, to my parents discovering Wheaton College at the time I was looking for a college to attend, to being called into the placement office at Bethel Seminary and being offered the opportunity to serve as an Associate Pastor at First Baptist Church in Fergus Falls.

                I find myself in the place again where I am looking for the hand of God. As I move into the next stage of my ministry life, the future is pretty cloudy. I do not know what the next step is, yet I am stepping out in faith, trusting God to guide me, as He has in the past. I know that God has given me the freedom to make choices along the way. I also believe that, if I will seek Him first, He will direct me toward the choices that are best for me.

                We tend to live our daily lives blind to the hand of God. We don’t see it, because we are not looking for it. We are quick to look for the hand of God when we are faced with some significant change in our life. But when it comes to the routine of life, we often live as if God is not involved or concerned about it.

                A number of years ago, I attended a conference at Bethel College where the speaker talked about training himself and his family to look for God sightings every day. Each night at dinner, the family would report where they saw the hand of God during that day. He commented that even if only a third of those incidences were really God actively involved it trained them to be more sensitive to God’s work in their lives. I think his idea was a good one for all of us. Are we actively looking for God in our daily lives?

                In Psalm 119, David asked God to open his eyes so that he could see wondrous things in His law. As you read through the Psalms, you encounter a man who was constantly looking for God’s hand. You can see him struggle when he cannot see God’s hand. You can see him rejoice when he clearly sees God at work. When David kept his eyes on God, he prospered in every area of his life. When David took his eyes off of God, he stumbled and fell.

                We are no different from David. If we actively seek God in our daily lives, we will discover that He is far more involved than we imagine. If we take our eyes off of God, we often stumble into situations that we would rather not deal with. Paul challenges us to live lives that are focused on seeing God in the everyday of life.

                For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding.  And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. Colossians 1:9-14

                God is actively involved in our lives every day, not just in the significant events of life. Like David, we need to ask God to open our eyes so that we can see the wonderful things He is doing in and around us. I want to challenge you to take the time today to see where God is at work and then praise Him for His amazing care for you.