The first night they stopped at the home of a poor man and asked if they could stay in his barn for the night. The man said “Oh no, come and make a bed by the fire in my house.” He and his wife showed them great kindness, shared their dinner and made sure they had everything they needed to be comfortable for the night.
In the morning, when they rose, they found the man and his wife quite distraught. Their only milk cow had died during the night. This cow has been an excellent producer and provided them with not only milk for their own needs, but enough to sell and trade.
As Elijah and his pupil left the house, Elijah said “God is so good, He’s so good,” and the pupil said, “How can you say that? They lost their cow. They need that cow.”
“Ah,” said Elijah, “But the Angel of Death who visited the house last night was supposed to take the wife. But because they were kind to us, he only took the cow.”
The next night they stopped for the night at a rich man’s house. They asked if they could stay in a barn or outbuilding, but the rich man sent his foreman to say that they were not allowed in any of the buildings. He said they could camp by a wall that had fallen down.
When they went to the place he indicated, they found a bunch of trees waiting to be planted. The gardener came by and said that he was going to plant them by the broken wall, but he had men come and move them away, and he would plant them further down.
In the morning when they rose, cold and hungry, they heard a great hubbub. The gardener had started digging holes for the trees and found a chest of silver coins and golden goblets. The rich man came out and declared the treasure was his and took it away.
When they were back on the road, Elijah said “Oh, God is so just. He’s so just.” And the pupil said “How can you say that? The poor man loses his cow, and the rich man who was rude to us gets more treasure.”
“Ah,” said Elijah, “But if the gardener had planted the trees in the place where we camped, he would have found a bigger treasure. A chest of gold coins and jewels.”
I was recently injured. Nothing serious, but enough that I got to ride in an ambulance, racked up $6,000 in medical bills and I couldn’t work. Things got difficult for us, but they were never intolerable. We were staying with my mother, and I felt bad because we could not contribute anything to her household, but we had a place to stay, and we made enough to get by. A friend paid me a little to tutor his pre-schooler, which more important than the money, allowed me to spend time with a little person I really love and kept me somewhat occupied.
I thought about this story of Elijah many times. Because I try to place myself in the Lord’s hands, I did not mourn my fate, did not question why me, why this, why now. I knew that because the Lord watches out for me, the outcome could have been much worse.
Maybe my small injury protected someone else from a larger injury. Or maybe the Lord just wanted me out of the barn, out of that situation and knowing me, He knew that I wouldn’t give up until I was forced out.
But because I put myself in the Lord’s hands, I know that whatever the reason, it was for my own good. It was the right thing.
Here’s a more concrete example.
We wanted to buy an RV. Found the perfect one for a reasonable price, and we had money to put down. At the time, I was working at a desk job, but we knew it would be ending, and I would be going back to horseracing. So an RV would be a perfect home for us.
So I was doing the whole Speak as if it were Already True Thing. Going forward in faith that the RV was already ours.
And we didn’t get the RV. A problem with my credit. No RV.
It was like a door slammed in my face. I didn’t know what to do, how to go forward.
And then a few weeks later, I got laid off, sooner than we thought it was going to happen. And I did go back to horseracing, but I worked four weeks for a woman who never paid me and it took more than a month after that to find another job.
So if we had gotten the RV, we wouldn’t have been able to pay for it right off the bat. We wound up needing the money we had for the down payment.
I am not one of those people who say that everything happens for a reason or that things always work out for the best. There are lots of people who can truthfully say that their story did not work out for the best. But I do believe that if you put yourself in the Lord’s hands and you make choices based on your beliefs and with faith, then the results, whatever they are, are the best results.
For we walk by faith, not by sight. 2 Corinthians 5:7
The real dilemma here, the real difficult thing to do, is to distinguish "putting it in God's hands" from "acting as if it were already true." Some people would say they are the same thing, and some people would say they are very different things. How to tell them apart? That seems difficult.
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