Thursday, October 26, 2017

What We Can Always Know

The next morning a group of Jews got together and bound themselves with an oath not to eat or drink until they had killed Paul.

—Acts 23:12

If you could know everything about your future, would you want to? If you could know about every plot or every bad thing that anyone ever made against you or said about you, would you want to have that information in your head? I wouldn’t. I think it would be quite disillusioning.

In Acts 23 we read that while Paul was in Roman custody, “The Lord appeared to [him] and said, ‘Be encouraged, Paul. Just as you have been a witness to me here in Jerusalem, you must preach the Good News in Rome as well’ ” (verse 11). The Lord came to him in his hour of need because He knew Paul needed this special touch.

Paul didn’t know there were forty men who had taken an oath to not eat or drink until they had killed Paul. He wasn’t aware of it because he didn’t need to know.

In the military they have a term for this. An officer might tell a subordinate, “It’s on a need-to-know basis. You don’t need to know.”

In the same way, sometimes we come to God and say, “What is going on with this thing in my life?”

And God says, in effect, “Well, that is on a need-to-know basis. You don’t need to know right now. But in time I will make it known to you.”

The Bible says, “And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them” (Romans 8:28).
We can’t always see how things are working together for our good, but we can always know. God will let us know as much as we need to know when we need to know. Until that time, we must trust Him.