March 2, 2024

God doesn’t do random. I think we forget that sometimes. When we read about Jesus and His Ministry, it wasn’t as if God was pleasantly surprised by what He did. He had a plan for Jesus to come as a sacrifice for sin even before mankind NEEDED a sacrifice for sin. Jesus was no random effort.
But Jesus wasn’t the only thing God was ahead of the curve on. Our passage today reminds us that John the Baptist’s arrival was also pre-planned by God. Isaiah wrote about John’s ministry over 700 years before he was ever born. Now THAT’S planning ahead! The funny thing is, almost no one understood that John was a part of God’s plan until they looked back and pieced it all together. As is often with the things of God, what makes no sense in the moment becomes perfectly clear in hindsight.
The same is true with us. Life can often seem to be a huge, jumbled mess. It gets frustrating. It gets confusing. Sometimes, even when we are CONVINCED that God has put us in a certain place at a certain time, we have no idea why. That is, until later, when we can often look back and fit the pieces together. Then what seemed to be random chaos becomes Divine Wisdom. That’s why God’s clear all through Scripture that we don’t have to understand why we have to do what He wants us to do. We just have to do it.
Let this encourage you today. You may be going through a time right now when you don’t understand what God’s up to, or why you’re going through whatever it is you’re going through. You may be wondering when He’s going to come through and answer your prayers. You may be wondering when you’re going to get to the other side of this troublesome time. You may be asking God why in the world He has you RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW, in THIS PLACE. And you may or may not ever find out. I’ll only console you with this. If God is in it, there is a reason. Just like John the Baptist and Jesus, God is way ahead of you. God doesn’t do random. That’s God’s Word for you today.