“We are still under his eye.”

Question: Have you ever experienced a day (or perhaps a season) when you think to yourself, “There’s just no way this is going to work out”? But then, it does. In a way whereby you realize God was working things out in a way better than you thought or imagined.

Christians will know the verses from Ephesians: “Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen” (Ephesians 3:20-21, ESV).

I won’t bore you with the details. I just know that one cannot refute one’s own history. When such an event happens to you and your loved ones, its scars (good and bad) are now on you.

Connection to Matthew: Today I had the opportunity to spend a few precious moments with a man who is a force of nature. He is perhaps the most amazing leader I’ve ever known personally. His resourcefulness is staggering. He has affected me in ways I’m not sure I even fully understand. And after I left his office yet again, I was working on another project as part of my job, and I was also in Matthew 1:20. This is the section in Matthew’s gospel where Joseph is grappling with what to do after he is told that his betrothed (Mary) is carrying the Christ child:

“But as he [Joseph] considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 1:20, ESV).

About this verse, one theologian writes, “We see here how seasonably and, as we would say, at the very point, the Lord usually aids his people. Hence too we infer that, when he appears not to observe our cares and distresses, we are still under his eye.” Put plainly, most young Jewish men betrothed to a girl in the ancient Near East in Joseph’s day would arguably have said to themselves, There’s just no way this is going to work out. But it did, you see. Mary had been overshadowed by God; Joseph did carry through with his marital vows; Christ was born and raised a carpenter’s son; and redemptive history continued. Joseph and Mary had mulitple other children after Christ has been conceived by the Holy Spirit (Mt 12:46; 13:55; Mk 6:3; Jn 2:12; 7:3, 5, 10; Ac 1:14; 1 Cor 9:5; Gal 1:19).

Encouragement: We are still under His eye. That’s the nugget of wisdom. God, sometimes (or maybe especially) catches us short and demonstrates grace, overflowing grace and benediction, when we, in our short-sighted humanistic ways, see no way forward, we find that we’ve been under God’s eye, in His care, loved by the Creator of all things.

We are still under His eye. Thank God for that.