How different would your life be if you had gotten up an hour later this morning? If you had taken a different route to work last week? If you had moved (lived) north instead of south? If you had married someone else? How different would your life be if any of these things were changed? It often happens that on simple and straightforward occurrences hang the major events of our lives, and sometimes even the difference between life and death itself.
For example, think of the story of Ruth in the Old Testament. She and her mother-in-law, Naomi, had no means of support. Both of their husbands had died, so they moved back to Israel after living in the land of Moab for many years. They had nothing to eat. Ruth volunteered to go and pick up the cuttings of grain that were left behind when the reapers went through the fields. As it turned out, she found herself, by accident, working in a field that belonged to a man named Boaz. Ruth just “happened” to pick his field.
Boaz was a close relative of Ruth's late husband and therefore, according to the Old Testament Levitical laws, he would be in line to assume the care of his dead relative's wife and property. As it turned out, Boaz eventually married Ruth. Ruth found herself a kind and loving husband, and Boaz acquired a wife with a beautiful heart and soul. Soon a child was born to them whom they named Jesse. Jesse became the father of King David and eventually an ancestor of Jesus, the Messiah. It all took place because one day Ruth “happened” to choose that particular field in which to work.
Of course, we would be missing the point if we believed these events just “happened” by chance. The Lord with His gracious hand was guiding the lives of these people. He was seeing to it that events occurred in such a way to accomplish His good purposes.
That's the way He guides our lives, too. He allows things to happen, big things, small things, unnoticed things. But these “happenings” are the workings of our heavenly Father which He allows to take place with our best interests in mind. In all things He controls and works for our good, and often we don't or can't see it.
Things Don't Just Happen, dear friends, especially not for the Christian whose life is guided by a loving heavenly Father. Instead, God Works in Mysterious Ways , His wonders to perform. On the basis of our text may the Holy Spirit guide us to see that I. In sickness He directs us to Him; II. By the use of insignificant things He helps us; and III. In grace He shapes our lives and blesses us beyond measure.
I. In sickness He directs us to Him.
In our text we run up against a man by the name of Naaman. He was the commander of the army of Aram, a great country which lay to the north and east of Israel. He had been a successful general, and stood high in the estimation of his king. To the people, Naaman was a hero. But these things didn't just happen for our text says that “through him the Lord had given victory to Aram.” The Lord was in charge. However, Naaman did not believe in the Lord. He thought that his own skill had brought about his great success.
You see, in his own mind Naaman was the master of his destiny. By planning and hard work he was able to chart a course for his life that was successful. But his confidence in himself was misplaced, for he was not really the master of his fate – God was. And God sent him a sickness, leprosy, which he could not control. It shattered his life. In it God intended to direct Naaman to Him.
On earth man's confidence is often misplaced. We trust our physical strength; then illness lays us low. We build our assets with investments; then a recession hits and threatens our security. We trust friends with secrets, only to find their hearts are false and that they use their tongues against us. We trust our own opinions, only to find that they often don't square with the facts. With it all we find that our ideals are shattered, our goals unattained, our ambitions unfulfilled. We find ourselves in life's predicament, like Naaman did. But it doesn't just happen ; God is at work.
How often don't the Scriptures remind us to redirect our trust and to focus our attention on God, who alone can get us through? Here there is no sure and snappy cure for all that ails us. There is no insurance policy that will protect us against illness and death. We cannot make our heaven here on earth. We really are not the masters of our destiny. God often shows us the truth of these matters in sickness or other difficulties that lay us low. But His purpose is not to destroy. It is to direct us to Him.
II. Often He does that by the use of insignificant things to show
that He is the one in charge.
When the sickness was at its worst, God sent a messenger to Naaman. It wasn't Elisha or one of the other fiery prophets; it wasn't one of Israel's illustrious kings; and it wasn't one of God's divine angels. It was a little Jewish slave girl. Naaman had captured her in one of his battles and had brought her home to serve his wife. A little girl, an insignificant slave, but she was the one whom God used to show that He was in charge.
You see, dear friends, God's heaven-sent preachers who show forth His glory aren't always seminary trained men; they can be slave girls, too. It can be you in the station of life where God has placed you. What “wonders to perform” might He use you for? We might not see it until His time arrives.
Perhaps the slave girl hadn't seen it either. But then the time arrived and she acted. She told Naaman's wife, “If only my master would see the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him.”
It was a living faith within her that impelled this insignificant girl to speak in the presence of the world's elite. And she testified to the power and grace of God in the simplest of ways.
Again, dear friends, this didn't just happen . God was at work . With His gracious hand the Lord was guiding the lives of people. He was seeing to it that events occurred in such a way to accomplish His good purposes. And He did it through an insignificant little slave girl? He Works in Mysterious Ways.
Those ways are supreme. Likewise His wisdom, knowledge, and understanding are supreme, even when they seem to go beyond reason to us. Throughout time the heroes and heroines of faith didn't always understand God's will in their lives. But they trusted His wisdom and foresight. And with childlike faith they learned that God Moves in Mysterious Ways , “His wonders to perform.”
There will be times when we just don't understand God's will for our lives or His ways of dealing with others. There will be other times when we think, “Well what in the world could we possibly do?” But His wisdom far excels ours, and that is our comfort.
Isaiah wrote (40:13), “Who has understood the mind of the Lord, or instructed him as His counselor? Whom did the Lord consult to enlighten him, and who taught Him the right way?”
The answer? No one. The lesson? God's ways are supreme, and He often uses insignificant things to show us that He is the One who is really in charge.
III. In grace He shapes our lives and blesses us beyond measure.
Following the advice of the little slave girl, Naaman went to see Elisha. He arrived in Israel's capital city, Samaria, still very much of the opinion that he was master of his own destiny for he came with all manner of expensive gifts with which to buy his healing.
He came first to the king of Israel who reacted in fear. His enemy had come to him expecting the impossible, that he would find him a cure for his disease. Frantic the king of Israel tore his garments, not knowing what to do or where to turn. How sad that the leader of God's people didn't know where to go. The little slave girl, trusting in God, acted much more wisely than he.
The king's shameful conduct saddened the prophet Elisha. Sending word to the king, he had him send Naaman to him.
Naaman came with horses and chariots and soldiers, thundering to a halt at Elisha's door. What a picture that must have been! One of the most powerful of worldly men waiting at the door of the prophet's humble abode. And Elisha didn't even come out. Instead, he sent his servant to tell Naaman to wash seven times in the Jordan River, promising that he would be blessed with healing.
Ah, in that, dear friends, was a real test for this proud soldier of the East. Bathe in the muddy old Jordan? That's all. Just bathe in a river? He wanted more. He expected some words of hocus pocus pronounced over him, a special ritual done just for him. Naaman replied, “I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, wave his hand over the spot, and cure me of my leprosy. Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than any of the waters of Israel? Couldn't I wash in them and be cleansed.” So he turned and went off in a rage.
We so much want to be the masters of our own lives and destinies. We so much want to plot out for ourselves our entire life. We so much want to see it done our way, in a way that is good for and worthy of us. In all such planning, little thought may be given to the fact that we really are not the masters of our destiny. There is One who rules our lives, and does it, quite often, in ways that are hidden and mysterious to us. And we soon see how little we are able to carry out everything that we had planned for ourselves.
By God's grace Naaman's servant stepped in to point this out to him: “My father,” they said, “if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more then, when he tells you, ‘Wash and be cleansed?”
Through their words of advice, God was working, calling Naaman to faith in Him and His abilities. Naaman humbled himself and did as he was told. And in faith God blessed him with healing beyond measure . Through it all God was shaping his life to trust in Him.
And so in grace He shapes our lives and blesses them beyond measure – often in mysterious ways - yet in deliberate ways, too, for things don't just happen. God is at work. He sees to it that events occur in such a way to accomplish His good purposes.
We may have thought that we were planning for our benefit. When we wanted to do one thing with our life, God did something else. And along with that He quite often refines us in the furnace of affliction, which burns but does not destroy.
Through the prophet Isaiah He told His people, “See, I have refined, though not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction” (48:10).
It is a marvel to watch silversmiths and glass blowers and other skilled workmen start with the raw material and from that progress slowly and patiently to fashion an object of beauty. In their own way they subject the material they work with to certain stresses and strains. It may appear at first as if they are destroying the material. However, in the end they have made an object of great value.
So the Lord makes and fashions us into something of great value - from that which is tainted with sin and apart from the Lord, to that which has been set aside for the glory and honor of God. He cleanses us by the blood of Christ Jesus, His Son. With the Gospel He calls us to faith in the Savior. He continues to refine us, sanctifying and keeping us in the true faith. He allows certain crosses and trials to enter, but all is done in grace to strengthen our faith and to keep us His now and forever.
With His gracious purposes in mind, may we ever recall that in our lives Things Don't Just Happen. Rather, God Works in Mysterious Ways. I. In sickness He directs us to Him. II. Often with the use of insignificant things He helps us. III. In grace He shapes our lives and blesses us beyond measure. God grant it in our lives of faith for Jesus' sake. Amen.