I was sitting on the couch last night not watching American Idol, thinking about all of the “if only’s”. If only someone else had gone down with James this past weekend like they had been the weekends before, he wouldn’t have been riding his motorcycle. If only he had been a minute later leaving. If only he had been a minute earlier leaving. If only the car in front of him hadn’t broken down. If only he had been in another lane. Then I realized something – God could have done any of a million things to prevent that wreck from happening. It would have been so easy to tweak just one little thing and keep it all from happening. In fact, it would have been much easier to PREVENT it than to let it happen. So I realized: it wasn’t that God had turned His head for a split second and the wreck just “happened” – it was a divine appointment. It was actually in God’s plans – and, as terrible as this feels to say, God orchestrated events to allow it to happen. God had a meeting with James Sunday afternoon that He wasn’t going to let him miss. For some reason, that was very comforting to me. Before that point, I knew that God was in charge of everything and that everything fit into His plan, but that was the moment that I realized that this WAS His plan. And that makes it all okay. I mean, it doesn’t in the short term, but it does in the long term. God knows what He is doing. He knows what He is doing much better than we know what we are doing. I can trust that God knows why this is in His plans, and rest in that knowledge.
Proverbs 16:9
In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps.
Psalm 20:7
Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God.
amen…