Christian Perspectives: Looking at the bigger picture

My wife and I like to travel and one of our favourite places to visit is within a day's drive of our home in Shelburne. We have been to Old Quebec City on a few occasions, the most recent time being last year in June (as a side note I would highly recommend taking a long weekend and visiting this beautiful city!).

One of the busiest parts of the drive is through the Montreal area. Normally we would have used a physical map but this time we ended up finding our way using google maps on my cell phone. Well it quickly became apparent to us that we had missed our exit from one freeway to another. This was hard for us to swallow especially as we pride ourselves in finding our way around as we drive places. It ended up that we could get off at the next exit and head back and find the right exit with no real problem other than being out a few minutes of our time. We both agreed that we would have been better off with a real map rather than the cell phone. With the phone it was difficult to get the big picture in reference to where we were headed. With a regular map we feel we would have realized where we needed to exit because we would have had the whole route on our map. Google maps on our phone just showed us a small area as we were going along.

This unwanted detour reminded me how, as we go through life, we usually don't truly get to see the big picture. We go along in life with many choices to make. We turn to God with these choices and ask Him to show us what is best. Whom should I marry? Where should I live? What job should I take? Where should I go to school? We usually have in our own minds what we think is best and we hope that what God thinks aligns with it. But what God thinks is best for us is not always what we think is best.

Thankfully we have a God who does see the big picture. He is all knowing and can see the end from the beginning. I believe that God does not necessarily desire for us to know the big picture because if we knew it, it might affect our choices here and now. I think that there are situations that God wants us to go through that will help us as we go through other situations in the future. He is preparing us for what is coming up.

So as far as our trip around Montreal goes, we trust that God has His reason for our missing that exit. It put us a few minutes later down the road and that must be exactly what He wanted.

So when it comes to any decisions we have to make in life, let's turn it over to Him and ask Him for guidance for He knows what's best in the big picture.

Proverbs 3: 5 & 6

Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek His will in all you do, and He will direct your paths. (NLT)

Jim Rintoul

Bethel Bible Chapel

Shelburne

bethelshelburne.com