Tuesday, April 12, 2016

The Master Weaver

“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28 NIV)

What a grand, glorious, and hopeful mystery this is!  I have lived it, but it’s still so hard to grasp: God can take the lousy things of life, both those completely out of our control and those which we have brought on ourselves, and turn them into blessings for us!

I was sharing some of my life story with a student recently and, as I talked, this idea formed in my mind of God as the master weaver who is able to take the poor, the unsuitable, and even the wretched pieces of our lives and weave them into a beautiful tapestry if we will only let Him.  
The more I deal with students, the more I see how many view themselves as victims of life’s circumstances, and, thus, helpless to do anything but just to get by.  They are crippled by their hopelessness. Campuses across our country are filled with depressed and anxiety-filled students who are overwhelming the counseling services there to serve them.  On our campus alone, the Dean of Students office employs several caseworkers whose sole job is to follow up on troubled students and the Dean told me not long ago he thinks they need additional help.

This is a generation increasingly mired in hopelessness, seeing themselves as controlled by their pasts and powerless to gain their freedom, hoping only to learn to cope the best they can.  But God offers us something miraculous—to turn our woeful pasts and circumstances into something beautiful.  If only we will trust Him.  And that is a big IF!

The currents of our culture flow in the opposite direction.  The voices of influence scoff at this type of hope as unrealistic and even delusional. How can a man or a woman ever recover from the effects of molestation as a young child? How can good come out of being abandoned as a child or from growing up with an alcoholic parent? How can one ever overcome the consequences of being a murderer or a rapist?  The world will say the best you can do is to cope with the consequences and limp through life saddled with the ill-effects.

BUT God says something entirely different.  He CAN overcome anything that has ever happened to us or that which we have done. NOTHING is beyond His redemptive power.  If only we will trust Him and submit these things to Him.  Then He will weave these less than desirable, and sometimes, awful things into something more beautiful than we can think and imagine (Ephesians 3:20).  Paul persecuted Christians and approved the murder of Stephen (Acts 7 and 8), Peter denied he even knew Jesus (Luke 22), Mary Magdeline engaged in prostitution (Luke 7); Zacchaeus was a thief (Luke 19); and the man possessed with demons suffered for years (Luke 8:26-39); yet all went on to follow Jesus and to be used for the glory of His Kingdom.  

Today, what things in your life, those you have done or those that have been done to you, are you holding onto thinking that nothing can be done and with which you just have to cope?  Turn them over to the master weaver and see what He will do.  I have and continue to be amazed by His skill.  I am confident you will, as well.  He can be trusted to do extraordinary work.

© Jim Musser 2016

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