To the Counsel of His Will

February8

“In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will,” Ephesians 1:11.

Little children are noted for wanting their own way. The pout, they cry, they argue with their parents regarding the things ‘everybody else’ is doing but they are not allowed to do. But in the depth of their being, they are happy to have perimeters set for them by loving parents.

Children, even when they have reached adolescence, realize that they are not equipped to take control of their own lives, and if they have a loving mother and father who have established safe borders for them in the past, they will comply with those boundaries even when their friends may have more latitude in where they may go and with whom they may go and what they may do.

Youngsters who are being nurtured in loving homes by loving parents know that the heart of their parents is toward them, that their mom and dad want what is best for them, so they follow compliantly.

We who are children of the Most High God have a profound realization that our Heavenly Father desires the best for us. We know He has sent the Treasure of Heaven to ransom us from destruction.

He has established His good intentions for us through the sacrifice of Jesus as the propitiation for our sin. We are aware that His willingness to do that, His granting to us of that “unspeakable Gift,” II Corinthians 9:15, assures us that His complete purpose for us is good.

So when things appear to go awry in our lives—when relationships sour or jobs disappear or disease assails; when persecution comes—we know our God has not abandoned us to the storms of life. We trust in Him, though the events that touch our lives on this fallen planet may bring us to distress.

Just as “the rain falls on the just and on the unjust; and the sun shines on the just and on the unjust,” Matthew 5:45, so do blessings and trials come into the lives of the good and of the bad.

But He, our loving Savior, has ordained that all these things shall indeed, “work together for good to those who love Him and are called to His purpose,” Romans 8:28. We know it is His will to effect the increased faith of and to promote the eternal reward of those who have placed their lives at His feet.