Looking for the Hand of God

We Christians really like those "happy verses" in Scripture. A favorite is "And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose" (Rom 8:28). Mmmm, just makes you feel warm and loved, doesn't it? Very comforting.

One of the popular things we do when faced with difficult circumstances is to use that verse as a springboard to find the hand of God. You know how this goes. We will either ask ourselves or, more often, try to work with someone else who is undergoing the hardship, to see if we can figure out what God is doing. We'll take that rotten ol' dark cloud and find that pretty silver lining because we know that God causes all things to work together for good. Yeah, that will make us feel better. So we'll start guessing. Maybe God intended to do this or maybe God is doing that. Maybe He's working in someone's life through your event or maybe He's trying to teach you something that you need to learn and if you only learn it He'll stop bringing all that pressure to bear. (That's one of our favorites.)

I'd like to point out that the verse doesn't say that. The verse doesn't say that we know what the good is that God is working out. It doesn't say that you can figure it out or that you'll ever know. It says we know it, and that's it.

You see, we tend to look at the temporal for the eternal. Instead of looking at the moon, we focus our attention on the finger that's pointing at the moon. God isn't saying, "Figure out what I'm doing." He's saying, "Trust Me." Our comfort isn't best found in tracing God's hand in our lives. It is best found in trusting His character. When we begin to trust God for who He is rather than for what He's doing for us, we have solid footing toward contentment in all situations. That's a good place to be.