Many are greatly troubled by things they don’t understand. Some feel God isn’t being fair or that everything is working against them rather than for them. How do you explain to a child the death of a parent? But as an old song says, “We’ll understand it better bye and bye”–indeed we will! Knowing his people were troubled by such thoughts, James Smith wrote the following to his church in 1840:
“We are often at a loss to account for many things in our feelings, in our circumstances, and in the Lord’s dealings with us; but what we know not now, we shall know hereafter. This is our Saviour’s promise; let us take the comfort of it, and expect its fulfilment to our perfect satisfaction by-and-bye. We shall know some things before the coming of our Lord, and we shall know all things after. Every difficulty will then be cleared up, and all the trying dispensations of divine providences accounted for. Let us therefore be patient and wait for the Lord’s time; the coming of our Lord draweth nigh. Let us silently submit to the Father’s will, for we shall see that it was wise and kind. Let us acknowledge the right of God to conceal the cause of His working, until He has fully accomplished His designs. Let us praise Him for all that is past, and trust Him for all that is to come. “Now we see through a glass darkly, but we shall soon see Him face to face, now we know but in part, then shall we know even as also we are known.” May the Lord direct our hearts into His love, and into the patient waiting for Christ.”
