You know those blank books people use for journaling? I have one that was given to me quite a few years ago (decades maybe?) that I do not use for journaling, but I do use to save quotes I like. One of my very favorites is by Corrie tenBoom, who was a survivor of a concentration camp in Germany during World War II. She says this: “Every experience God gives us, every person He puts in our lives, is the perfect preparation for the future that only He can see.”
Having read “The Hiding Place” multiple times over the course of my life, (and I just started reading it again!) I am always struck by the story of how a very ordinary person was used in such extraordinary ways. Corrie was in her fifties when her adventures began, and up to that point was a repairer of clocks in her father’s clock shop in the Netherlands. She never imagined the plans God had for her, the pain and the loss she would experience. Nor, the miracles that would take place before her eyes because she was willing to be used by God for His purposes.
How had God prepared her so perfectly for the adventures and horrors that were her experience? By placing her exactly in a family that was steeped in God’s Word. A family that was faithful in prayer and service to others. Even by placing that family in an extremely old, crooked house that was perfect for hiding Jews because of its odd mishmash of levels and rooms!
Every time I read that quote, I feel the peace of knowing that nothing, NOTHING happens to us by mere chance. God has perfectly orchestrated each detail of our lives to prepare us for His plan for us. Psalm 139 says, “All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” (vs. 16.) So, does that mean God knew what our world would be facing right now? Yes! Verse 5 of that Psalm says, “You hem me in – behind and before, you have laid your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.”
Our feeble minds can’t imagine how God can know what’s behind and before us. We can’t imagine how He might use this time of separation to mold us, to change us, to push us, and to quiet us. And since the knowledge of His plan is “too lofty for me to attain,” I will rely not on my mind or my will, but on God’s word, which holds this promise: “You are my hiding place; you will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance.” (Psalm 32: 7)
Today, remember that God has prepared us for this moment in time, and He is using this time to prepare us “for the future that only He can see.” I will rest in that peace, and know that I, too, am hiding in Him.