Do you ever wonder what God is doing in your life or in your world? Are you praying and waiting, praying and wondering—all the while knowing that He is the God who could change it all … but still hasn’t yet? Sometimes it’s hard to understand.
The fact is that the omnipotent, all-knowing God is working the events in our lives on a level that we will never understand. He is God, and we are not.
I love the old phrase, “We play checkers while God is playing chess.” We keep our red and black chips close, carefully strategizing our moves, one by one. A jump here. One square there. Checker by checker, making progress, one stealthy move at a time.
God, on the other hand, plays a glorious, grandmaster game of chess. He has every move carefully and strategically planned. And He is making millions of moves all at once—kings, queens, pawns, bishops and more—all in a singular seamless movement, beautifully orchestrated as the pieces move in time to parts of an interwoven plan.
God is always loving, directing, guiding, orchestrating for the good of His children and the glory of His name toward a grand and majestic, pre-determined finale.
We are so limited by time and space that it is a mystery to us how He could be working all of these details of our lives together. All of the details of history together. All of the details of the eternity together. But He is!
Remember Joseph? He was beaten and betrayed by his own brothers, sent to be a slave in a foreign land, imprisoned for wrongs that he never committed. I’m sure Joseph would have never chosen to move any of his checkers into those slots.
But God was working as His pawn languished in jail. One amazing day, Joseph was released and knighted as second in command over all of Egypt. Check. Because of Joseph’s responsibilities, he was able to provide food during a great famine to keep his own family from starvation. Checkmate.
God knew what He was doing, even though it was a great enigma to Joseph. Famously, Joseph acknowledged, “God meant it for good” (Genesis 50:20). And God’s moves appear just as mysterious to us today. Yet, they are still just as good.
So what does all this have to do with the season of Lent?
As we move closer to Easter and study what the Bible says about the life of Christ and His purpose for coming to earth, these events are just as mysterious. It’s hard to discern how the hand of God was moving in those events long ago.
The Jews in those days longed and hoped for a Messiah. The Scriptures told them a Messiah was coming. But to them this was a puzzle, a mystery. God was moving in ways they did not understand.
Some of the most fascinating mystery novels are full of twists and turns that leave you surprised and hungry for more. In the same way, God’s story in the Bible is actually a series of clues. And the clues in the Old Testament reveal one of the most mind-boggling mysteries of all time—the Messiah who would come one day to live on the earth and pay the ultimate price for our sin.
With God, nothing is random. Every detail is ordered with purpose. So His clues about the Messiah aren’t haphazard or left behind accidentally. They are purposeful and perfectly orchestrated, just like His chess moves.
And with the help of Scripture, we can now understand how God was moving those chess pieces in time to accomplish His purposes.
We have created a devotional called The Messiah Mystery to help you and your family unravel the mystery of Jesus, one clue at a time. As parents, we long to influence our children toward truth, to connect with them in meaningful ways. When we teach them about Jesus, we take their hands and help them touch the transcendent unseen. Bringing the reality of the eternal to our homes knits relationships together.
Sometimes it feels like the biggest mystery of all is helping our children understand who Jesus was and why He died. As we move into the season of Lent, The Messiah Mystery can help your family learn about the greatest story, the greatest mystery, of all time. You can grab your copy in our Etsy shop by clicking here.
