Lifting The Veil

"We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations."
                                                    Chuck Swindoll




If we can say nothing else about this life on earth, we must say that it is definitely filled with many surprises. Some surprises are sweet and good and leave our hearts overflowing. Other surprises can be brutal and we are left reeling in our minds and emotions. And the biggest surprise of all is that not one of us really know what a day may bring, whether it is amazing or a mind-blowing kick in the gut. Thankfully, most days fall somewhere in between the two extremes and yet we become more and more cognizant of the outliers that exist around us.

When we consider the spiritual aspect of our lives, it is also true that God can surprise us in a million ways. He can have someone call us out of the blue just to encourage or comfort us. He can instantly answer a prayer that we have been praying. Or, He can wait a very long time to answer a prayer and even say "no" to us for reasons we do not understand. He can even allow evil to prevail for a season in our lives, which takes a massive toll on our hearts, minds, and emotions. It is in these times that we search for answers and a revelation of His presence in our lives in deeper ways than we have previously done.

All of these surprises, both good and bad, are all part of the human journey that make up our lives. And, if we surrender to the work that God is doing within us, we will find that each and every one of them is strengthening us and transforming us more and more into the image of God. Each of these circumstances is allowing God's glory to be revealed through us if we are submitted to His plan.

The most interesting aspect of this to me is that God often does His greatest work in the midst of what seems impossible to us. Truly, it is when He is the most glorified. Think about the Israelites when they were in the wilderness. God literally took care of their clothing, food, and needs for forty years and there were millions of them! To each of them, their situation looked impossible, as is evidenced by the fact that they grumbled and were not allowed to enter the Promised Land. But, actually, this was a lesson that God would use for every subsequent generation as a reminder that He is fully able and competent to deliver us from impossible circumstances.

In fact, many of our impossibilities are actually great doors of opportunities for those of us who genuinely believe. The reason we often fail to believe this is that too often they are disguised by the enemy. Satan takes what we see with our eyes to convince us that this is what is true and there is no other truth involved. This is completely a lie because Jesus is The Truth and whatever He says about our situations is the absolute truth.

This is exactly what happened to Peter when he was in jail (Acts 12:5-17). If we only looked at things in the natural, Peter's circumstances were indeed dire. He was imprisoned by Herod for his faith and awaiting certain death. The prison bars were real. Peter's confinement was real. And, so was Herod's history of persecuting and executing believers. There really wasn't any wiggle room for misinterpreting the facts that surrounded him... But God.

When God decides it is time to change a situation, it is definitely going to change! This is true no matter how determined Herod was to keep Peter in jail. He was so determined, in fact, that Peter was chained to two Roman guards. After all, the last time Herod had imprisoned Peter, he mysteriously escaped his fate and Herod was not about to be humiliated yet again!

Peter was not worried and could rest peacefully because he did know that there were many who were praying for him. Additionally, Peter was praying and no doubt reminding himself of God's great and precious promises that we can find today in the Bible. Also, Jesus had personally told Peter that he would die as an old man and he would be crucified on a Roman cross (John 21:18-19). It was all of these truths that lifted the veil off of Peter's eyes to see The Truth from God's perspective and not be limited only by what he could see. Peter was confident that he would ultimately be delivered, even thought there still were those pesky questions of "how ?" and "when ?".

Obviously even those questions did not keep Peter from sleeping so soundly that when the angel appeared to him, the angel had to strike him on the side just to wake him up. Peter's peace did not come from the fact that he had twice been a prisoner before and had escaped. No, this time was very different from the other times. Before, he had been able to witness to others, but that did not happen this time. This time he was all by himself and had been held captive for quite some time before God stepped in to deliver him. James had just been murdered by Herod, and Peter was no doubt still grieving the loss of his close friend and fellow sojourner.

The angel told Peter to bind his garments with his girdle and to put on his sandals, which Im sure he would have done very quietly so as to not disturb the sleeping guards. The angel freed Peter and led him out of the jail without any fanfare whatsoever. Peter ran to Mary's house where the prayer meeting was being held and despite the fact that his friends were fervently praying for him, they could not believe it was really him. At first, the maid did not even open the door!

This shows how much the disciples and followers of Jesus were also grieving about the loss of James. One of the reasons God performed this miracle in Peter's life was to encourage and strengthen His children. It was not a miracle that was necessarily for the people in the prison as much as it was for God's own people who desperately needed to see a display of His love and power. And, God used Peter's life to breathe new life into His discouraged and unbelieving children.

Peter's "impossibility" became a great door of opportunity that was used to change lives. The same can be true for the "impossible" situations in our lives. It can be true for the loved ones we have been praying for for a very long time. It can be true for people around us who do not know Jesus. It can also be true for other believers that desperately need to see a move of God and for Him to be glorified.

We will never understand all the things that happen in this world because we are not God. However, if we ask God to lift the veil and show us His perspective, He will often do that for us. He may give us a verse of assurance or a promise or the confidence to know that He really is with us in the midst of something difficult. Surprisingly, He loves to meet us in those most difficult times and shine His brightest light. That, sweet friend, is the greatest opportunity and privilege of all!

"Whenever, though, they turn to face God as Moses did, God removes the veil and there they are- face-to-face! They suddenly recognize that God is a living, personal presence, not a piece of chiseled stone. And when God is personally present, a living Spirit, that old constricting legislation is recognized as obsolete. We're free of it! All of us! Nothing between us and God, our faces shining with the brightness of His face. And so we are transfigured much like the Messiah, our lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like Him."
                                                   2 Corinthians 3:16-18


*Please Be In Prayer For Tennessee's Heartbeat Bill Summer Study on Monday and Tuesday!