God's Eye View

God's-eye View
by John Fischer

For now we see through a glass, darkly… (1 Corinthians 13:12 KJV)

I had a mentor once who loved to teach about faith from a 20-foot long timeline of Bible history that he used as a powerful visual effect. He would roll out this room-sized diagram with a long line from Adam and Eve to the present day. On it, at appropriate spots, he would place little figures representing some of the well-known characters of the Bible such as Abraham, Moses, David, Ezekiel, and Paul. Then he would walk over to where, say, Moses was, turn him toward the future, and place a dark pane of glass right in front of his nose.

“This is how much Moses could see when he looked this way,” he would say, and because we had the perspective of the rest of the timeline, we could understand Moses’ dilemma, but also gain strength from what we knew lay ahead of him that he couldn’t see. In other words, in relation to Moses, we had more of a God’s-eye view of things.

Though Moses could not see into the future, there were two directions he could look, both of which were useful to his faith and in turn are useful to ours. He could look back and see how God had been faithful in his own life up until then, and, most importantly, he could look up to God and put his trust in the one who sees all.

The obvious lesson here is that we are in a similar place. We can only look back to the past and up to God, and remember there is a God’s-eye view of this; we just can’t see it right now. He knows what He’s doing and how the events of our lives fit into His overall purposes for us, and those around us. He sees reasons we have no access to. He sees a plan that looks at best murky from our point of view. But the future, and God’s purposes for us, and the reliability of His promises are no less reliable than they were to Moses. In fact, we have the huge benefit of much more history than Moses ever had-the fulfillment of things he could only dream about.

So just remember, whatever you are going through today, or wondering about in relation to tomorrow, there is a God’s-eye view of this. Look up.

John Fischer is the Senior Writer for Purpose Driven Life Daily Devotionals. He resides in Southern California with his wife and son. John is also a published author and songwriter.