not what you'd expect

We're reading A Year with C.S. Lewis. Today we read from the January 25th selection.

Lewis points out today that life is not what we can predict. It's odd and random and strange and unpredictable. And since Christianity is part of real life, it is also those things.

When we take a look at what that means, we find that one aspect of that is how God relates to each of us. For instance, I was thinking today about how God told Joseph in a dream to leave Bethlehem and go to Egypt so that Jesus wouldn't be killed by Herod. But all of the other parents in Bethlehem stayed there, unwarned in dreams, and their babies were killed. I'm tempted to think "What's the deal, God? Why didn't you warn them?"

But that's where this "real life is messy" thing comes in. I don't know their stories. I don't know those parents, or how they relate to God. I don't know about all of the thousands of stories in each of their lives, each one different and unique and amazing. When you start listening to people's stories, you find that God often DOES do things like warn people and protect them and so forth.

So that's where trust comes in. I know how God takes care of me. I know that His kindness and love can be trusted, since I see it in my life, in the lives of people I DO know the stories of, and in the lives of people I read about. So I can trust Him in the lives of all of the billions of people in the world whose stories I DON'T know.

Thank You, God, for being a God we can trust in the middle of our very real, very messy lives.