Vapor Trails of God's Wisdom

Romans 11:33 Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!

God links seemingly unrelated events as cause and effect relationships that we don’t easily track on earth. Things we may believe He has forgotten, secret things we did where no eyes but His were watching, He often rewards in unrelated ways. We may have sown compassion and He might reward us with a harvest of peace.

His word contains a large number of insights into these cause and effect relationships, whispers of the secrets of the kingdom. Although His ways are deeply wise and beyond tracing out, His word shows us His vapor trail in many of these kinds of interconnections. One of these has meant a lot to me recently.

Isaiah 58:9 Then you will call, and the Lord will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I. “If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk, 10 and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday.

The kind responsiveness of the Father is most poignantly felt when we spend ourselves on behalf of the hungry and look after the needs of the oppressed. What a treasure attached to a task many would prefer to ignore. We have just spent a few days in Uganda with God’s people. Men and women who lead churches and spend themselves on behalf of the poor. Once again we were humbled by their heart for God, their willingness to sacrifice and their openness to share the little they had with whoever was in need.

I know that God’s heart and hands are always open to me because of the beauty of the finished work of Jesus and not by my own works, but as I was thanking the Lord for this opportunity and the lives we were able to help I sensed a warm tenderness from the Father and I heard Him say “Here I am” when I called to Him. His response reminded me of Isaiah 58 and made me appreciate all the more the people who gave so generously in order for us to come and the church we lead for their willingness to join is this apostolic adventure. Mostly I am in awe of the God whose wisdom and knowledge are immensely deep and whose ways are wonderful.