I have written on this topic before and will probably write more on it because I believe enlightenment regarding this comes in stages and with growth. The Lord recently revealed more and I needed to share it with you. I’m not going to candy-coat this. This is raw and as honest as I can be.
 
There is an easy answer, except if you’ve gone through it yourself. Then there is no easy answer. We lost our dear son-in-law Jeff through cancer. God’s word said we were to trust Him in every circumstance and to lean on His promises. God’s word said to hold on to those promises and cling to them even though all natural evidence pointed to the reality that our loved one was slipping away. We were expected to be 100% in faith, to truly believe that God would heal him, even at the 11th hour, or even as he took his last breath, and yet he slipped away. How do we be 100% in faith for our loved one to live, and then pick up the pieces of our shattered dreams, hopes, expectation and very lives when they don’t? Where can we find relief? What now? How could a benevolent God who says He is always faithful allow this? It would appear that my testimony about God’s never-ending faithfulness has holes in it. Is that it? Is that the end of our story? Does our outcome invalidate God’s promises in His word?

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No, it isn’t, and no, it doesn’t. But we can’t go back to the way we were before the experience and be the same.  Our entire families have now been forever changed, but it isn’t the end of our story, and it doesn’t mean God failed us.
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I have come to this conclusion: Life on planet earth is fraught with tragedies and miracles every single day. We already believe in God. My question is not whether or not God can deliver my loved one, it is whether or not God will deliver my loved one in the way I hope. Ultimately, we are all saved from disease. Ultimately, we are all saved from death. Death is an actual thing that will be thrown into the lake of fire at the end of the age. (Revelation 20:14) And when we were conceived in our mother’s womb and became a living eternal spirit, we are ultimately saved from a living death in Hell thanks to accepting Jesus. But you may still ask: Why bother praying for our loved one to be healed, if they are not going to be healed to continue living with us on earth. Answer? Because God told us to. And because our prayers matter.
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​I have personally been involved in what I believe are divine interventions, potentially saving my life and the life of my unborn child. I also believe that these divine interventions were specifically tied to my close walk with God and studying and relying on His word, in this case Psalm 91. I had memorized it because I love it, especially the part that says: “He will command His angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways; they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.” I confessed this over my life regularly and I believed it. Then came the day I was travelling down a major street, alone on the road except a car heading towards me from the opposite direction signalling to go left at the next intersection. For some reason the driver of the other car thought I was also signalling to go left when in fact I was simply passing through a green light. They turned right into me at full force and my large car ended up leaning high on the corner light pole. I literally had to jump down out of the car. The police attending the accident said I was very lucky. In light of Psalm 91, luck had nothing to do with it. I literally did not strike my foot against a stone, and my car and myself were lifted up in angels’ hands to save me. I don’t just believe God was involved; I know that I know He was involved and I believe Psalm 91 had something to do with it. Another time I was again driving down a major street when a car came shooting out of a side street as they’d run right through their stop sign. I was 9 months pregnant with my third child and I was T-boned. The car hit me broadside, just beyond my door. Had I been a split second later, he would have hit me, very likely killing me and my unborn child, not to mention my other daughter in the back. The car was totalled. These are two examples. I do have others just as miraculous.

Now, years later and a lifetime filled with God’s blessings, interventions, prayer requests that received “yes” responses as well as some that received “no”, our dear son-in-law is fighting for his life due to cancer. As a family and personally, I have never prayed harder, never believed stronger, never fought against the enemy of doubt with the full armor of God on, more intensely. We all hunkered down. I made a quality decision to be a dispenser of hope as well as a prisoner of hope. After all was said and done, our Lord brought him home and we were crushed, but not as the world understands crushed. We were like the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 4:8 being pressed on every side but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair. We were deeply grieved, but not without our living Hope.

In saying all this the reality is that you and I are going to face trials and tribulations and there is no 100% method of conduct, prayer or faith on our part that will guarantee the outcome we want, here and now. However, and this is a BIG however, the choice of who you go through it with, is yours. Satan comes to steal, kill and destroy; Jesus came that we might have life and have it more abundantly. This is not a contradiction in terms in regards to our losing Jeff. God didn’t save me from those car accidents, but He did save me in those car accidents. God didn’t save our son-in-law from death, but He did save him to bring him home. Satan could not kill him, just as Satan couldn’t kill me, and couldn’t kill Jesus. I guess what I want to say to everyone is this:  We have no idea if doing life with God, having faith in Him will give us our expectation, but we can know this: Your faith, your perseverance, your giving it your all does matter and it does play a part in the circumstance.  He will never leave us alone, and I believe He not only can, but will make our losing Jeff beautiful, in His time. The only other choice, is to turn your back on God thereby placing your life in the hands of Satan, where you can be 100% sure to expect the worst outcome imaginable, guaranteed. If you want to be killed, be stolen from and destroyed, he is your ticket. You don’t have to fear the worst, because it can be counted on.

The most important outcome isn’t whether or not we get our healing or our miracle. The most important outcome is that The Great I Am is traveling this course with us, and that there is much more to come beyond our acute disappointment that will turn our ashes into beauty, both in the here and now, and in the world to come. 

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​My husband Jake had been reading in his devotions about Noah’s Ark and something struck him.  He began to think about all the dynamics involved in building that Ark and housing all those animals in that small place for that length of time.  He asked me: “Did you ever think about how much wood Noah needed to build the Ark?  He probably had to pay for it somehow, or at least go and chop it down; I wonder how long it took to build? And after they were all on the Ark, animals included, do you realize just how much poop they had to shovel?”  I laughed and thought about it.  If you’ve ever owned a dog or pet, it’s kind of amazing just how much bodily waste they let go of.  And what about the food to feed all those animals?  This must have been a huge amount to feed them all for approximately the year spent on the Ark.  We had a golden retriever, and I was amazed at how much food she consumed.  I can’t even imagine what all those animals consumed every day, never mind for the year they were on the Ark.  

​As I thought about this, it struck me that God worked their salvation from destruction in a very supernatural, natural way.  He didn’t place Noah and his family in a supernatural bubble for the duration.  No.  He instructed them to build the Ark, fill it with food, fill it with animals, and get ready for a flood.  He in essence provided their salvation, but there were very specific natural things they had to do in order to survive and thrive.  It’s like he said: “Behold your salvation!  By the way…there will be plenty of poop to shovel.”  They had to build it, stock it, work it, keep the animals alive in it, and survive in it.  It reminded me of our lives.  God has provided salvation, but we too will need to shovel poop—the sometimes-unpleasant task of getting rid of sinful ways and habits, the by-product of dying to the flesh and growing up, spiritually.    
 
What would have happened, if Noah and his family went into the Ark to be saved, but never lifted a finger to do anything else?  Their environment would have become pretty repulsive.  No, there was plenty of work to be performed, and if they didn’t do it, they might have perished from disease, even though they had been saved from the flood.  Hm.  The entire Ark would have been an open sewer.  Not a very healthy place to live even temporarily, that’s for sure.
 
We are very much like Noah and his family in many ways.  We too have been saved from destruction; but in the Ark of our salvation, how healthy is our spiritual environment?  What are we doing to dispose of sinful habits that have formed in our lives?  Do we let them hang around until our lifestyle gets really offensive to Jesus, or do we dispose immediately the sin that Jesus shows us, by repenting and asking for help to overcome next time, keeping our lives fragrant?

​Building our lives to float on flood waters, stocking our lives with spiritual provision—the meat of the Word of God so we can feed ourselves and others, working to keep on moving forward with where God needs us to go, and not only surviving our “floods”, but thriving in spite of them, will all take us through similarly what Noah had to go through in the natural.  We have at least one thing in common with Noah:  All he had to begin with, was a righteousness and faith in God.  We have one huge advantage, though.  God was with them, but better yet than that, He is now in us, equipping and helping us get rid of the sin that pollutes our lives by the indwelling Holy Spirit. 
 
Just as God got Noah and his family through, He will also work in very supernatural, natural ways in our lives.  People often expect God to miraculously intervene and deliver them from a sinful habit without them lifting a finger to do what obviously needs to be done, and although he does do that, God more often than not leaves us in our Ark until things get really smelly to motivate us to do something about it.  It’s amazing how God will supernaturally help us, if we’ll just try.  We all know the areas of our lives that do not please God, and we all have them.  The question is, what are we doing about them? Are you done with a sinful habit?  Then get rid of it!  Make a careful, thought-through quality decision.  God will back you up. Noah got a free ride, but he wasn’t on a Cruise Ship, but an Ark.  Surrendering all your struggles to Him, and keeping them surrendered, is a key.  Once you’ve made that decision, don’t back down. There will be work for us our whole lives, in keeping our spiritual environment clean and healthy.  We’ve all been saved from death, Hallelujah.  But the quality of your journey, is largely up to you.  Remember too, that a whole new world awaited them after it was over…

We are in a new year, praise the Lord. A little over a year ago we lost our dear son-in-law to cancer. The Lord impacted me today with a blog that may help some of you going through a loss. I pray it blesses you.

We all face difficult circumstances throughout life.  Sometimes, extremely difficult circumstances, such as losing a loved one through illness. If we believe in Jesus Christ however, we can count on Him to be directly involved and because we’ve invited Him in to the situation and have put our faith in Him, our outcome could and often does become fulfilled as we’d hoped. 

But what will we do if it doesn’t? 

​In the natural, I will receive a good outcome or I won’t. Knowing the worst can happen is our default so we are already sensing fear. In other words, I can live expecting the worst, or live believing God will come through. The problem is that believing God can be tough. It’s far easier to fear, than to have faith.

​I used to say that having faith in believing God for the best outcome costs us nothing because one of two things are going to happen:  I will receive a yes, or a no, from Him. I’m already naturally disposed to no, so if my faith has bearing on the situation why not go with yes?  It doesn’t cost me anything to believe, right? The things is, I was completely wrong. Having faith in believing God for the best outcome does not cost us nothing. It costs us everything. Hook, line and sinker. Getting out of the boat and walking on water towards Jesus so far that you can’t even see the boat anymore. Knowing that if He doesn’t save you, you will drown.  I hate to say it, but this is where Jesus needs us to be. However, God does, and always will have, a bigger plan for us despite the thing we’ve lost.

The hardest part of having faith is not necessarily staying steadfast in the belief that God will give you what you are earnestly believing him for; the hardest part of having faith is believing that God will deliver you, even if you lose the thing you were believing God for.
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Despite many people praying and doing all we knew to believe God for a miracle, we still lost our dearly loved son-in-law Jeff to cancer a year ago. Today God once again reminded me of where I need to be.  I need to be in the same place Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were when being faced with the very real possibility of being burned to death. They found themselves in a pagan land. They found themselves with two choices: Compromise their faith and bow down to a golden idol and be saved, or refuse to bow down and be burned alive. I know what I’d be thinking: I’d wonder if God would forgive me later for bowing down this one time to literally save my skin, but whether or not they thought that, they didn’t do that. Here is what they said:

“If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and He will rescue us from your hand, O king. But even if He does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.”

They said that God could do it. God will do it. But if God doesn’t do it, we’re done. But you can’t take our faith, full stop, period. Even if that event had ended with them being burned alive with Nebuchadnezzar being the apparent winner, he wasn’t. God would have had a bigger plan, despite them being burned alive. As we know, God sent an Angel into that fire with them and with his physical eyes Nebuchadnezzar said “Look! I see four men walking around in the fire, unbound and unharmed, and the fourth looks like a son of the gods.”

​And so, in looking back at our families’ tragic loss, albeit a year later, I have chosen to continue to believe the same way they did despite our outcome, God help me. It would have looked something like this:

“If Jeff continues to become more ill, the God I serve is able to save him from cancer, and He will rescue Jeff from cancer. But even if He does not, I want you to know, Satan, that I will not serve you through unbelief or say that you won. It’s not over yet, not by a long shot. You cannot have my faith, full stop, period!”

We too have gone through the fire, and perhaps you too are now going through your fire. Despite that, God does, and always will have, a bigger plan for us despite the thing we’ve lost. Even if it costs you everything, just continue believing.

For an incredibly uplifting song which reflects this message, listen to Even If, by MercyMe
​(Thank you Edie!)

In studying God’s Word I was once again impacted by people in the Bible who fully believed in God’s promises but didn’t receive what was promised during their lifetimes either. Yes there are many accounts of God fulfilling his promises to his kids us included giving us relief from dire health issues, dire finances, dire relationships, the list is long. Jesus came to give us abundant life and he has proven that to me over and over again. (John 10:10) But what if we didn’t receive what we were believing for? No one wants to talk about that one. We may ask “well, what then is the whole point? I am relying on God to come through for me now, not after I die. After I die, I won’t care whether I received what I was believing for.”

​There is a place we need to stop and look at this thing called life through God’s eyes and park ourselves there because through man’s eyes it doesn’t make sense. 

For me God needed to shift my earthly perspective to his perspective to be frank. We can learn a lot from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  Abraham received instruction from God to leave his home and go to a place God would show him. God made staggering astounding promises to him and yet Abraham died without seeing them fulfilled. The same promises are given to Isaac and then to Jacob who later becomes Israel. Here’s the thing: None of these men saw with their physical eyes the complete fulfillment of God’s promises, yet they did not take the position of “well what then is the whole point?” You see they had God’s perspective in view.

God’s promises to them were as real to them whether they saw them fulfilled or not, and that, was what was most important. It didn’t matter to them that they didn’t get to enjoy them.

They looked at the promises fulfilled with the eyes of faith and this gave them as much joy as if they’d received them during their lives. This my dear readers, is the lens through which we need to view our no or not yet answers from God. As much as it hurts to lose loved ones we’ve desperately prayed for I know that God is bigger than death or those losses. Jesus himself proved this by dying on a cross and being raised up again. He literally destroyed the power of death.  He knows how hard we are hurting. I know that there is much I am not permitted to see and understand at this time yet Abraham, Isaac and Jacob did not see and understand how and when God would fulfill his promises either. All they knew was that God would fulfill his promises.  

And so I realized my priorities needed to be rearranged, especially how I view God fulfilling his promises to me.  He has made promises to us in his Word and he cannot lie; but how and when he chooses to fulfill them is his business, not mine. I cannot bring back those I’ve lost but that does not mean God has failed me, or he’s finished yet. Only God can make impossible expectations and dreams for the future, possible.

​At the end of the day whom or what are we going to believe in when we’re disappointed? Are we going to let go of our faith and become faithless and bitter? How tragic that would be especially when we see later that God did have an amazing plan but we threw out our faith complete with his remarkable plan for restoration. Do we really want to stay bitter? What possible happiness could poisoning our souls achieve for us? 

Or are we going to persevere knowing God hasn’t finished with us yet. Are we going to let him change our perspective on this thing called life knowing his actions are not necessarily based on our lifetime, but on his limitless knowledge from the beginning of time and to the end?  And here’s the really tough question: Are we going to let him change our priorities despite knowing that the fulfillment of our expectation may exceed our lives? Will that be enough for us?

​It has to be, because I for one do not want to miss out on seeing it fulfilled one way or the other, now or later.

The wait, will be worth it.  You’ll see.
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​These are the thoughts my husband randomly came up with out of the blue for no particular reason in explaining some reasons why husbands cheat on their wives.  Since this isn’t his normal behavior, I sensed since it was important enough for him to convey his thoughts on paper, I’d share it with you. His desire is to help women understand what he believes men want but being the tough guy they believe they are don't know how to convey it.

​Guys cheat on their wives for many reasons. I do not know all the reasons but here are a few.

​How do we help Christians who have lost their way?  How does a person go from knowing that a serious action is wrong to justifying that action? For e.g.  How does a person go from saying “I’d never commit adultery”, to regularly committing adultery?  What has happened to change their convictions to the complete opposite when at the beginning they were staunchly opposed to the opposite?   If someone was to go up to a newlywed and tempt them to commit adultery, that newlywed would say:  “Are you out of your mind?  Go away!  You are trying to destroy my marriage!” They see the end result very clearly.  And yet, many married couples begin completely devoted to each other and end up falling in this area and their marriages are destroyed.  How did they go from devotion to deceit with their mate?  There are many reasons to be sure. Often people are angry with God over negative circumstances he's allowed to pass through their lives and they let go of what pleases God to now please themselves. They feel justified to do so because "God let it happen so now he owes me".  This is another ploy of Satan. God’s word says that Satan is a liar; in fact, Jesus said that lying is his native language.  This is how Satan destroys lives; he gets people to believe his lies in a subtle subverted manner, a little at a time. Satan is the master of all lies and tempts us to justify each and every small sinful decision along a route that ends in destruction.  The Bible is full of examples, and it all began in the Garden of Eden when the serpent asked Eve:  “Did God really say that you would die if you ate from the tree?  God would not really destroy you; He just knows that if you eat from it, you’ll be as wise as He is, and He’s keeping you from this good gift.”  (My paraphrase)  Now, Eve became deceived because she chose to believe something that she wanted.  Whether it was wrong or not, became secondary.  No one who starts off with a moral compass that is in good working order makes a conscious decision to destroy their lives.  It is our fallen nature coupled with Satan working behind the scenes whispering thoughts and ideas that greatly appeal to our sinful fallen nature that we listen to and obey, when we should be kicking his butt out of our heads. 
 
So how do we help Christians that have ended up in the ditch off the highway of God’s best for them?  How do we help them find their way back? Let’s begin with the wrong way.  When we have not lost our way and our friend has, we usually feel we need to bring correction and simply tell them that they’re wrong according to the Bible; that they’re sinning; that they’re hurting people.  But here’s the thing:  They’ve already gone through an entire series of decisions that have excused or justified their behavior in getting to where they are.  To tell them that they’re violating vows or disobeying God is something they’ve already cleared in their heart.  They know that what they’ve done or are doing is wrong, so telling them they’re wrong is often like closing the barn door after the horse has already left the corral.  We are stating the obvious.

What we need to do, is to love them back onto the right road, not smack them over the head with a Bible.  In fact, I’ve never heard of anyone coming back to right behavior by being hit over the head with a Bible in a judgmental fashion.  People who love their Lord and have lost their way first need an arm to come around them to show them unconditional love like Jesus loves all of us. We all mess up after all. This isn’t saying we’re condoning their actions. It’s saying we care about them despite their actions. When a believer has lost their way the first thing a true friend should do is to begin with prayer, push and not quit. Not push with judgment, but “pray until something happens” and not quit. Ask Jesus for wisdom in our responses. We are unable to break deception off people; only Jesus can do that.  He does however need a mouth-piece to guide them back through a process of talking with them with the voice, tone, heart and truth of the Lord to undo the deceit the enemy has bound them all up in.  This takes time and effort. You may have to wait some time before that happens but in the meantime you need to continue to love them back on to the highway.  

The reason that judgment is so damaging is it often drives the wounded one to justify their sinful actions and they harden their heart even more to the voice of the Lord. This is where the saying:  “Why do Christians shoot their wounded?” comes from. How is the Lord able to minister to them if not through their family and friends? Who can they turn to if those lifelines are cut? Jesus is our example and he always brought uncompromising correction, but through love.  The only ones he blasted were the judgmental religious community who thought they were so spiritual, when inside they were full of corruption.  Jesus always showed love, mercy and compassion to those whose moral compass was way off, like the woman caught in adultery, or Levi the Jewish Tax Collector who was hated by his peers.  These two were lost in their sins, but Christ gently forgave the woman and told her to sin no more, and invited himself to Levi’s house to have dinner with him, because Jesus knew that bringing Levi to the point of repentance would require hanging out with him for a bit.  Levi not only repented, but gave back 3 times as much as he’d overcharged his fellow man in taxes, and ended up writing the first book of the New Testament! Exposure to the true love of Jesus Christ makes people want to change.
 
What an example for us to follow.  If someone we know has fallen down, our job is to gently help them up and get them back on track no matter how many times they’ve fallen, and how many times we need to help them get up until they are rescued to wholeness. This my dear readers, is Christlike love.

​Do you want to begin to get a deeper sense of God’s existence?  Examine nature. There is so much around us that we take for granted but the truth is, amazing things are constantly changing all around us. Our world is alive because God is alive, and He made it simply for our enjoyment. That makes me feel so loved.  I enjoy seeing the documentaries where they take an orchid for example and show us a time lapse video from bud to full flowering sped up so my jaw can drop as I sit mesmerized at the incredible symmetry and perfection in the design of that single flower. And for me, design demands a Designer. I simply cannot believe that the incredible designs we see in nature happen randomly by chance. We cannot physically see God, but we sure can see what He’s made; that alone should give us clues as to his incalculably vast existence.  God’s fingerprints literally permeate nature.  He can be clearly “seen” by everyone.  The Apostle Paul who lived in the first century A.D. says in Romans 1:20, "For since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities, his eternal power, and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse." Paul was saying that the evidence of God’s existence is so overwhelmingly evident simply by looking around with the intellect He’s given us, that no one will be excused by believing anything short of this. All mankind’s reasoning denying God’s existence over the ages put up against the nature around him will be utter foolishness.
 
Psalm 19:1-4 says that nature itself “speaks”:  “The heavens declare (shout; say with emphasis; affirm) the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.  Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge; there is no speech or language where their voice is not heard; their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.”  Does that leave any room for doubt that all people aren’t given a chance to know God made the world? 
 
Creation demands a Creator.  Design, demands a Designer.
 
I always say it actually takes more faith to believe that our world came about by accident, than by creative design. We all have a sense of how complex our jet liners have to be in order to fly safely right? Someone once said that in order to believe in the big bang theory, it’s like taking all the disassembled parts of a Jumbo 747 Jetliner stripped down to the washer; throwing them all into a humongous bag; shaking that bag around for 100 trillion years, and ending up with a fully complete, functional 747 Jetliner. When one considers all the moving parts that have to come together sequentially in order to fly nature is way more complex. We can look at the orchid from bud to flower but what about all the other conditions that have to perfect for it to grow, bud and bloom? And that’s a flower…  Look at human beings and animals. Another aspect of nature: Wind.  It’s invisible, life giving and life taking.  We know it is air that is being drawn around the earth, but look at its magnificent and terrible power. It can and does displace buildings yet can be a gentle refreshing cool breeze in your face. We can’t see it, but we sure can feel and see its effects on things if it’s moving.  We see this miracle all the time and go, so what?  That’s natural.  Even when it’s not moving we believe it’s there.  God is just like that wind: Invisible, life giving and life taking; full of magnificent and terrible power, or a gentle refreshing of our weary souls. He can and does affect lives; we can’t see Him, but we sure can see His miraculous power when He’s moving.  He too is around us all the time. 
 
As said before, God created the whole world and everything in it, just for you and me.  It gives him pleasure, to see your pleasure in what He’s made. If you listen, creation will speak to you.  That’s not creepy; God said it does. In gazing at God’s creation, let your amazement and appreciation give Him back the glory that is due Him.  Your world just went from black and white, to colour. It should humble us and prompt us to glorify Him as the heavens do:  They convey the demonstration of his power, the radiance of his splendour, the atmosphere of his presence, the weight of his importance, the expression of his goodness, and the essence of His nature.  Can you hear and see Him in that sunset He made just for you?

​As of five minutes ago, the world's population is estimated to be at 7,883,740,996 and growing.  Do you ever have a hard time wrapping your brain around the fact that God is able to hear somewhere in the neighbourhood of 7.8 billion voices at once if they were all to call on him at the same time? I used to get frustrated when my 3 kids would talk to me all at once and expect me to hear their needs. He’s not limited to that number, either.  As mankind increases on the earth, God is more than able to hear every person ever born from Adam to the end of time, should they address him.  And, not only can he hear an incomprehensible amount of voices at one time, he intimately loves, cares and has a purpose for each and every one.  In addition to all that, he runs the Universe with his spare time.  Can we really appreciate just how omnipotent (all powerful), omniscient (all-knowing), and omnipresent, (everywhere at once) he is?  Is there any problem of ours he can’t solve in light of all this? I find that when I study God’s magnitude it increases my faith to believe he is more than able to handle my problems.
 
            Man has been created with a finite mentality; we have however a mind than can understand infinity—no beginning and no end, but we operate in finite terms.  Almost everything we do has a beginning, a middle and an end.  Not so with God.  God himself created units and measurements of time moving forward, but he is not bound to it as we are.  We move forward in time into the uncertain future but understand it backwards as history. God knows the beginning and the end simultaneously and yet leaves room for our free will and all the possibilities and outcomes those choices create.  It is very helpful for us to view our lives through this lens.  Think about it. If you could know how your kid’s life would progress from beginning to end I’d bet you’d change some of your parenting decisions along the way due to having that knowledge for their ultimate good.
 
God is no different than us. This is why God’s solutions to our problems don’t always line up with what we want. We want immediate relief when God knows that that solution may only put a temporary bandaid on the problem. Knowing the beginning from the end God wants to go to the heart of the problem for a long-term solution that may be different than ours. God’s timetable and ours is usually different too.  When we cry out for a solution to a problem we want that solution right now, right? I’ve heard it said this way:  God is never late, but usually not early either; but He’s always right on time!
 
So, it’s okay to not know what will happen.  He does.  It’s okay to have to wait a bit. His best solution is coming. It’s okay to trust him with your uncertain future. He knows your future. When you get to Heaven and look back at your beginning, middle and end, may it be a beautiful tapestry of God’s weaving that fits into eternity.