“In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength…” (Isaiah 30:15, NIV 1984).

A resident I know who loves the Lord and is dedicated to following God’s will for life told me his story at a conference recently: “In order to complete the mission God has for my life, he showed me I needed to travel far away to a city where I know no one. I learned recently that the period of time required there would cost me $5,000, money I do not have. I prayed, exasperated, for God to help me with the cost and help me get there. The next day, I was visiting a house church where people prayed for me and for God’s will in my life. I did not tell them of my financial need, or my prayers, in any way. When the prayers were completed, a woman sitting by me—a total stranger who I had never met—told me that God had asked her to help me. She handed me a check that I tried unsuccessfully to refuse. I thanked her, placed it in my pocket, without looking at it until I got home. When I opened it…there was the $5,000 I had asked God for the day before! It was a true miracle, without a doubt.”

Why does God do stuff like this?

We all have seen it happen on rare occasions. Why does He sometimes step into our lives in ridiculously marvelous ways and accomplish what we cannot accomplish ourselves?

How does He decide when to do it?

Why not now?

Why not for me, now?

Praise God that He intervenes at all. Praise God that this young doctor will receive the training he needs. Praise God he can look at his patients with faith that God works real miracles.

Praise God for all the sick He heals. Praise God for all the addicted He unchains. Praise God for all the lost He brings home. All of this is His power intervening in our world, His incarnation begun with Christ, continued with His Holy Spirit.

Praise God! And then we ask, “Why not now? Why not for me, now?”

Resting in His arms, trusting in His love, confident of His power, even as we ask such questions: this is what faith is made of.

Dear Father,
Praise Your name for Your power that we so often witness in this world, power through which all things eternal are accomplished. Let me rest in Your powerful arms.
Amen