The Greatest Good
O’ Theophilus,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ (Rom. 1:1, ESV).
Many things have transpired in my life since my last entry to you. The last few months have been quite unexpected for me. The Lord has directed my journey to unexpected places, unexpected unknowns. Currently, I am preparing to venture into a new season and a new chapter in my story with excitement and gratitude. In preparation for what the Lord has next for me, I have a word of encouragement for you.
As I was meditating on the Lord’s goodness recently, I recalled an intense season of wrestling and fasting in prayer this year. Many things weighed upon my mind at the time, and I knew that I needed the Lord’s direction and leading to find clarity in these matters. Before beginning a set time to seek the Lord in this way, I wrote down a list of things that I was believing that the Lord would reveal and lead me in this year. As I am reading many of these requests and areas of confusion that had brought much anxiety and had troubled me from that time, I now look back over the past few months and see how the Lord either has directly addressed or begun to reveal His will in so many of the things that I brought before Him in that season of prayer.
In Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, the Great Teacher spoke these words: “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.” (Matt. 7:7-8, ESV). Speaking about prayer to the Father, Jesus taught not a message about a cosmic genie granting personal wishes nor a gospel of prosperity. Rather, He preached about genuine pursuit of the will and work of God in life through prayer and the response of the Lord’s goodness in this pursuit. For those who ask Him, they will receive. For those who seek Him, they will find. For those who knock, it will be opened.
Reflecting on the prayers that I prayed at that time, did I receive everything that I had prayed fervently for, exactly as I had desired? Certainly not. Yet, as I prayed that the Lord’s will be done in my requests and concerns, the Lord very evidently answered prayer in these areas in His will. And it has been more than I could have imagined or envisioned. While not everything turned out exactly the way I had wanted from my vantage point then, I have witnessed the Lord’s goodness in so many tangible ways and in so many revelations of His will for my life. Even in the things that did or do not seem good to me, I trust the Lord’s goodness there too.
O’ Theophilus, seek the Lord in prayer. We serve a loving Father who gives good gifts to His children who ask (Matt. 7:11). Remember, God gives good gifts. Even the gifts that do not seem good are gifts that He knows are good for you. Let us join the saints in praying the words of Jesus: “Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:10). God’s will experienced, revealed to us clearly or not, is the greatest good that you could ever experience.
Grace be with you,
caleb