How necessary it is to seek grace for each moment of the new year, to rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him! You and I will not be able to decipher every turn God will take us around in 2005. However, this is cer­tain: no matter what trial or test we may have to endure for Christ’s sake,

All things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.Rom. 8:28

Jesus, who is both Savior and Lord of His people, provides perfect and excellent counsel from John 13:7 by saying, “What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter.” Jesus is engaged in foot washing, teaching the importance of humility and directing His disciples to the truth about His humilia­tion, so necessary to merit salvation and grace for His people. Peter, along with the rest of the disciples, fails to fully comprehend Jesus’ action. Consequently, Jesus directs Peter to the fact that many events in His life of humiliation would not be thoroughly understood at present. However, Jesus assures the disciples that they would more fully understand Jesus’ ways “hereafter,” or as He unfolds His action to them in time.

Children of God, we do not learn everything in one day, but rather in a step-by-step fashion as God wills. Must we not admit that many events in God’s providence regarding our spiritual pilgrimage heav­enward, are not fully comprehended, let alone finished? Despite the fact that God providentially causes things to occur which baffle us, we must still rest in Him. Resting in Him unconditionally and unre­servedly proves our faith in Him as our Triune God, as well as our faith in His holy, unchanging, and eter­nal Word. If we were to judge an artist upon a work that was half finished, how unfair and miscalculated our judgment. Peter, too, judged Jesus’ actions in John 13 without fully comprehending what He was sent to achieve. In fact, in his short-sightedness he actually opposed Jesus’ dying.

Too often our judgment of persons or events later proves to be to the dishonor of God, as well as our own hurt and shame. To judge a matter with our puny, finite, and darkened understanding before God unfolds it is not only sin, but also arrogance and presumption. Do you want to know the man who is most miserable and wretched? He is the man who sees nothing but destruction in every storm cloud, nothing but disaster in every undertaking, nothing but sorrow in the very means used for his joy, nothing but overthrow in the steps that lead to his exaltation.

Let us therefore seek grace in 2005 to say, “Thy way is in the sea, and thy path in the great waters, and thy footsteps are not known” (Ps. 77:17). Let us seek grace to say, “I waited patiently for the LORD; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry” (Ps. 40:1). Let us seek grace to rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him.

How critical to understand and remember in the year 2005 that we will never fully realize any act of God’s providence as God knows it. Therefore, how great the need for stronger faith, daily patience, and resignation, dear child of God! Isn’t this one of the rea­sons why the LORD records in Psalm 37:7-9,

Rest in the LORD, and wait patiently for him: fret not thyself because of him who prospereth in his way, because of the man who bringeth wicked devices to pass. Cease from anger, and forsake wrath: fret not thyself in any wise to do evil. For evildoers shall be cut off: but those that wait upon the LORD, they shall inherit the earth?

To rest in the LORD requires much grace. To quiet our agitated spirit so that we are silent before the LORD in any given situation is only possible through divine intervention. But thanks be to God, our intervening High Priest, Jesus Christ, makes intercession for us without ceasing. He prays for us that our faith fails not. Didn’t our Lord resign Himself to His Father’s will in Gethsemane? And shall He not provide us with grace to rest in His will, to follow His way, and to wait upon His Word?

To wait with holy patience on the LORD for His time of resolving crosses is what every soul saved by grace prays for and desires. Obtaining it from the heart and hand of God, we will be able to rest in the LORD more fully and firmly. When the LORD informed Moses that He would fight for him and that he was to hold his peace, did anything fail of what the Lord said He would do? Of course not! God is a God of truth. He is an almighty God and a faithful Father. He will never for­sake us as His own. A silent tongue in many cases not only shows a wise head, but a holy, Christ-like heart.

Therefore let us calmly rest in the LORD, and wait patiently for Him. When we calmly rest in Him as the God of the whole earth who does as He pleases, all will be well in His time. God will never be too late; His time is the perfect time. This glorifies God and proves our Christ-likeness. Give your spiritual and temporal cases into God’s hands. He it is that fashions our lives accord­ing to His own plan.