Wrap up - Part 5

God kind of had all these things from the previous days posts lingering in my mind when I was went back to the passages on Joseph.
For whatever reason I was thinking to myself about how wrong it seemed that a man so obedient to God, whose role that God called him to play was to be Jesus’ father, didn’t get to see it to fruition. Shouldn’t his obedience, like that of Noah, have enabled him to see it through?
To see Jesus do the very things that were prophesied?
And it made me think of all the negative things that happen in this broken world…how hard things are and how they don’t really seem to work out…we say to ourselves and pray:

Romans 8:28And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

And we feel better…right? It gives us comfort to know that God is looking after us. And he tells us that he will…right?

But another passage came to me…the one with Elijah and the widow in 1Kings Chapter 17...and thought,
"What happened to the widow once the rain came?"

You remember the passage right?

14 For this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: 'The jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the LORD gives rain on the land.' "

The widow was in dire straits…making a last meal. Along came Elijah asking something fairly ridiculous...but, she was obedient and saw a miracle.
However, once it rained, she and her son were possibly back to having that last meal again.
From my perspective, and possibly from hers it may have really seemed that God had showed her and her son a miracle…and for what? That they may have starved a week later?
Now I know that we don’t see that or know that…but would it change your perspective on God’s providence and provision if that was how the story ended?
My immediate response tends to be yes…what a waste that would have been…but God then brought to mind another passage:

Isaiah 55:9"As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

But, we don’t have God’s perspective do we?

And for us to truly understand how He looks out for us, for our future we would have to have that same perspective…one that we will never have while we are here.
If that story was the main role that God had wanted that widow to play in this life…to give us this story that would be passed down in his divine word and then he called her home to an eternity with her…does that perspective change what those circumstances might be telling us?

And specifically to me…God was reminding me that regardless of how much I trust Him and how obedient to Him I may be…I will not necessarily understand what happens…

We are called to be obedient, and we are told that we CAN and SHOULD trust God….

BUT

Are you ok with being obedient to God only so long as you get to see things to the end like Noah did?

Are you ok with being obedient to God if you only get to see things part of the way there…a project is only half done like Joseph with Jesus?

Will you still be obedient to God if that provision of flour and oil runs dry because the rain has come and that was all that God promised?

Because for every Job where the obedience ultimately turns out as looking positive from a worldly perspective there are Stephen’s where obedience does not look so good from our perspective but was exactly what God intended that would work for the good of those who love him.