The Smiling Providence!

     Okay, here's what I should be doing--working on a lecture for Bible study.  After all, it's coming up on Tuesday morning, and so far, I have.....uhhh....not a whole lot.  Well, actually, that would be nothing.  As in, nada.
     Not that I haven't loved studying Esther 1.  I have.  It's terrific--the whole book of Esther is such a wonderful portrait of God's amazing providence.  The Lord's name is never mentioned in the book of Esther...not even once.  Yet His fingerprints quite literally cover its pages, front and back...and all over and in between every single line as well.  I love it!  Isn't that so often how God does His most amazing work--silently, quietly, hidden, yet inexorably in complete control and bringing all things into conformity with His perfect plans?
     Miracles are marvelous, no doubt about it.  But I sometimes find it even more powerful when God moves and works behind the scenes, through the mundane and ordinary and commonplace.  We think He's not there.  We see no evidence that He cares or that He's at work...until suddenly, we glimpse the completed masterpiece of His handiwork and realize He'd been at it all along. Only we couldn't see Him or feel Him.
     When you can't feel Him with your feelings, feel Him with your faith.  And trust that He who controls the spinning planets, the flight of the bumble bee, the rise and fall of nations, and the cardinal on the bird-feeder, well, He's got your life--and the lives of those you love--perfectly in His loving, gracious, merciful control as well.
     O how thankful I am for the providence of God!
     And so I'm reminding myself that God is sovereign and providentially in control of all this snow and cold and sleet as well.  Because here's the thing--my sin-prone, complaint-prone heart is tiring of all this muck and mess with all it's disruptions to normal life.  It was beautiful, spectacular really, but now...well, now, I thinking, "Okay Lord, it's time for kids to be able to go back to school...and get back on a schedule...and have a moderately clean house again (i.e.without coats and hats and mittens and boots strewn everywhere)...and try, try, try to get going on a lecture...and restock groceries (not that I don't love multiple permeations of milk and bread and chocolate)...and allow our boys to get back out and play golf since they have school tryouts and tournaments next week and..."
     Well, you get the picture.  I bet I'm not alone--we're all pretty much over this snow stuff and ready to move on to crocuses, spring sunshine, and the sound of birds singing...rather than snow plows scraping!
     But the Lord reminded me, once again, He who is sovereign and providentially in control of ALL things, well, He controls the weather...and all our times of waiting too.  So help us Father to trust You in this waiting, or in any kind of hard waiting we might be enduring.  Teach us to trust that through it all, every single last bit of whatever any of might be going through right now, You are working and moving and making everything beautiful in Your time.  Maybe not always on our timetable, but on Yours...which we know and believe is always ultimately best.
     After all, You're the God of joy--even in the midst of the unexpected or the unwanted.  We just received this picture--it's a little reminder that when things get tough, God enables His children to get a bit tougher and stronger too!

   That's Richard and his Davidson teammates practicing to get ready for their tournament in Alabama on Monday!  You gotta love it.  They may not end up with the lowest scores as a result of their inability to play and prepare, but they will have the toughness factor down pat!  Somehow, I think God is smiling.
    Thank You for Your providence, Father.  Help us to see and trust You in all the gaps and spaces in our lives where we tend to doubt and worry.  You've got it...and we are Yours.
      To God be the glory.