Robyn and I sent some chocolate covered strawberries to a friend who’s serving at a Young Life camp in Colorado this month. If you’ve never tried Shari’s Berries, I highly recommend them!
I was tracking the shipment this morning and took this screen shot on my phone:
The order was picked up yesterday evening in California. It was then flown more than half way across the country to Memphis where it arrived very early this morning. After spending a few hours in Memphis, the package was flown west and arrived in Denver a couple hours later. Some time today, that box of one dozen chocolate covered strawberries, which will have traveled almost 3,000 miles in less than 24 hours, will arrive at Crooked Creek Ranch and be eaten!
From California to Tennessee to Colorado. Doesn’t seem to make much sense, does it?
But it does to FedEx. They have a system that works. They can get a package from California to a small town in the Rocky Mountains in less than 24 hours. For a reasonable price. And they can do the same for thousands of other packages being delivered all over the country.
On the surface, it doesn’t make sense to send a package half way across the country and then half way back to where it just came from. But what seems to be inefficient is actually highly efficient. FedEx knows exactly what they’re doing. And they have the track record to prove it.
If FedEx knows what they’re doing, then surely we can trust God to know what He’s doing, can’t we? His track record is perfect.
His people were in captivity and would be for 70 years, but He sent word to them:
For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.” (Jeremiah 29:11-14)
Maybe today it feels like God’s isn’t making much sense in your life. You can’t figure out why He’d send you in one direction only to take you back in another. It sure seems like God could be a lot more efficient if He’d change His methods a little.
God knew what He was doing with the nation of Israel.
And He knows what He’s doing in your life. It’s okay that you can’t see it. He can.
And it delights Him when you choose to seek Him and trust Him.
And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. (Hebrews 11:6)