“Study hard and you’ll do well”. I believed this principle up until law school. After that, it seemed how hard I had studied had no bearing on how well I  did. The courses I studied the least for I did the best in, and vice versa.

Sometimes life feels like that.  We can think we have God all figured out, that if we do this-and-this then God will do that-and-that. If we pray and raise our kids principled, they will turn out “good”. Or if we serve the ministry wholeheartedly, it’ll grow. Or because we are “faithful”, we won’t suffer poverty or sickness. But that’s not true. Hardship isn’t always a form of punishment; it comes even to, or maybe especially to, the most holy (“holy”). And maybe that’s what makes God God. We can’t put him in our box. He is not bound by my expectations, or a church system, nor is he limited by our shortcomings and sins. His holiness, his faithfulness, his love is much deeper and higher.

So you’ve got your Joseph’s and Daniel’s who at least appeared to be perfect. But they faced some real injustices. Then you’ve got your Jacob and it’s like wth, why him? He’s selfish, he’s proud, he’s deceitful, he’s bad. But I think that’s exactly the point. God chose him to show that his choosing is his grace and his working is his power. Jacob made so many mistakes and it should not have ended well for him. But God didn’t let him go. In the end, God proved that his love was greater than Jacob’s sin. The most impossible thing happened which is that Jacob changed. In the end, above all his ambitions and achievements, he beheld the glory of God and simply bowed his head in humble worship. He had arrived.

I am a pretty simple, straight-and-narrow, black-and-white person. I’ve struggled to live by the truths I’ve been taught and not stray too far from the road. But life is still unpredictable. A doesn’t necessarily lead to B, at least as I understand A and B. I think about what sovereign grace means again and this is as much as I understand it: God is the potter. He makes some little pots and some big pots, and it can get all around pretty messy but in the end, He makes the best pots. He’ll finish the good work He started in each of us. Our constant struggle is to surrender to His higher way. If God could bring glory to His name out of the shame of the cross, then surely He can make and break these jars of clay to hold the treasure of His Son.

Lord, beyond our thoughts and expectations, even beyond our weaknesses and sins, please do Your work in each of us, in Your good way. In the end, may we gain Christ and glorify Your name. Amen.