A blob of faith

You don’t know where the wind blows. And you don’t know how a baby grows in its mother’s womb. In the same way, you don’t know what God will do—and he makes everything happen. (Ecclesiastes 11:5)

We all have those seasons in life when we know stuff is happening, or about to happen, but we really aren't sure what all is about to come our way. We get a little frightened by the stuff we don't understand, try to make some assumptions about what we believe may be happening, and generally get ourselves all out of sorts when stuff gets harder than we'd like. Then along comes God's intervention and all of a sudden, almost without us noticing, things begin to sort themselves out and life gets a little easier. What we missed in all that in-between stage was the peace God wants us to walk in as we go THROUGH those seasons.

Today, we can use 3-D ultrasound to get an almost perfect picture of the baby's features. In the time this passage was recorded for us, a baby was concealed deep within the womb until the time of conception. At the time of birth, what was hidden from view was revealed. God is reminding us that we might not always see what he is doing, but he is at work. He is arranging things, multiplying other things, creating what is to come long before we ever see it revealed in our lives. The 'happenings' are behind the scenes and as with the development of the 3-D ultrasound, we aren't the kind of people content in 'not knowing', so we attempt to finagle our way to resolving things to the way we imagine them to be. 

God makes things happen, even when we don't see him at work. In the good or the bad, he has a mission in mind for each of us. We may not really like all the waiting to 'see what comes', but when we lean into his Word, allowing it to wash over us and bring us comfort, clarity, and consistency in our faith, we will do better in the 'in-between' stages of life. The baby starts out quite unrecognizable as a 'baby' - it is just a 'blob' of tissue coming together until one day features begin to be recognizable. In much the same way, God is at work with a 'blob of faith' within us, forming it this way and that through this event and that, until one day that 'blob' becomes recognizable as a deepening faith in his plan. Just sayin!