View Your Past Through the Lens of God’s Faithfulness
By Michael Kelley
The type of lens makes all the difference. The most common type of lens is single-vision. It has the same prescription over the whole surface. But a person might also need bifocals. These lenses are divided into two sections - usually distance correction on top and reading correction on the bottom. There are also trifocals, which function like bifocals but with three zones for distance, intermediate, and near vision. The kind of lens you need depends on the kind of eyes you have, and the right lens makes all the difference.
While the wrong lens brings haze, the right lens brings clarity. That’s true with glasses; it’s also true when we look back at our past.
As Christians, we know God is faithful. The Bible tells us so:
He who calls you is faithful; he will do it (1 Thes. 5:24).
But the Lord is faithful; he will strengthen you and guard you from the evil one (2 Thes. 3:3).
Know that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps his gracious covenant loyalty for a thousand generations with those who love him and keep his commands (Deut. 7:9).
Despite that, we often look back over the course of our lives and wonder. We wonder about pain we’ve experienced. We wonder about opportunities we didn’t get. And we wonder about what “should have been.” We wonder about all those things, and we might be tempted to wonder about God’s faithfulness.
But perhaps we are looking backward with the wrong lens.
When we look backward, we often do so wondering whether or not God has been faithful. When we feel that sense of loss, we begin to question whether or not He has actually faithfully provided. Or sustained. Or guarded. Or strengthened.
But what if we changed our lenses? What if instead of looking backward wondering about God’s faithfulness, we looked backward assuming His faithfulness? That is to say, what if we believed the Bible when it tells us that God is faithful?
When we change our lenses to that starting point, we already know God has been faithful; we are just looking for the evidence of that faithfulness.
When we change our lenses like that, we are able to appreciate the faithfulness of God to a greater degree. Changing those lenses helps break us out of our presumptuous pride that assumes we know the best and most right way for God to provide. Or strengthen. Or guard. Or sustain. We find our hearts increasingly open to the surprising and unexpected ways in which He has done all those things. We find ourselves appreciating more and more God’s sovereign care for us even when we didn’t recognize it at the time.
Truth is, we will never know just how faithful God has been to us because His faithfulness extends even to the realm of our unawareness. We will never know all that He has kept us from.
Friend, God has been faithful to you, even if you don’t know the full extent of that faithfulness. Why not trust His Word and assume He has been faithful, and then let your soul rejoice as you start to spot all the ways how?
Michael Kelley is a husband, father of three, author, and speaker from Nashville, TN. His latest book is a year-long family devotional guide called The Whole Story for the Whole Family. Find his personal blog at michaelkelley.co.
