On Divine Providence
Lately I’ve thought a whole lot about Divine Providence. Inspired by a book, of course. But also conversations and circumstances and desires.
It's funny because the most fundamental aspect of who God is is His Goodness. And the aspect we most doubt about Him is just that: goodness. The other day I was reading again from Trustful Surrender to Divine Providence, and I was thinking: The Father is so good that before He wills any of our earthly happiness, He wills our eternal beatitude. He wills our healing, our wholeness, our peace, our ultimate salvation.
The one who alone is Good seeks, above all else, our eternal beatitude and communion with Him. Which means that the little things will not always be ~exactly~ how we expect. It doesn’t mean our desires don’t matter, because they absolutely do. The Father has written them into us. But I think we spend a lot of our lives caught up in an earthly sort of hoping, battling the ebb and flow of confusion and doubt when things don’t work out how we planned.
It’s like we forget that He is good (and wills ours) in those moments.
Why do we let our restless hearts prevent us from resting securely in His Goodness?
And why do we let our worship cease when the outcome is different than expected?
And why does the waiting weary us so that we lose heart when the Father is really just asking us to hold on because the time is not quite yet?
Certainly, it is a mix of our humanity and finiteness and sinfulness that leave us with fears and doubts that the God we place our trust in might let us down. We forget that He has endowed us with a promise: His Spirit to sustain us when words fall short, feelings cease and desolation is upon us.
His Providence is written into all of it. It is the axis that supports the entirety of our existence. And we ought to accept all that comes our way as either permitted or ordained by the Father. And then praise Him for it. It gives me, quite honestly, the most sustaining peace I have ever felt to know: 1) the Father is good, 2) He wills my good, 3) His Providence is everything.
Simple, childlike even, but so steadying.