He Was Already Working On It

Let me tell you how this usually goes. You mess something up. Maybe you forgot to send a payment, or you signed a paper you should've read twice, or you said something to somebody you can't take back. So you lie awake and run it forward in your head fifty different ways, and every one of them ends badly. You dread the phone call for three days. Then you finally make it, and the person on the other end says, oh, that got taken care of last week. You stand there holding the phone with nothing left to say.

I've come to think that isn't luck. Isaiah 65:24 says before they call I will answer, and while they are still speaking I will hear. Jesus said in Matthew 6:8 that your Father knows what you need before you ask Him. Before you ask. Most of us pray like we're breaking news to heaven. We lay out the whole situation like God might not have the file. He's got the file, and He had it before you made the mistake.

In Matthew 17 the tax collectors ask Peter if his Teacher pays the temple tax, and Peter says yes. Then he goes into the house, and Jesus brings it up before Peter can say a word. Jesus sends him to the lake with a hook and tells him the first fish he catches will have a coin in its mouth, enough for both of them. Peter had spoken for the bill without checking with anybody. The Lord knew about the tax, and He knew where the coin was, and Peter hadn't asked Him for either one. Notice too that the money came out of a fisherman's own work, in the place he knew best.

Picture a man who finds out the hail last week tore up his roof. He spends the weekend sick over it, figuring what a roofer will charge. Monday morning he finally climbs up to look, and the shingles are new. His neighbor leans over the fence and says, I went up Saturday while you were at work, figured you knew. He didn't know. He'd spent two days grieving over a roof that somebody had already fixed, and I'd say plenty of us have done the same thing with a bigger problem than shingles.

Now somebody's thinking, okay, but that wasn't Peter's fault. What about the ones I caused? I'll be honest, that's where most folks get stuck. We can believe God covers the storms. It's harder to believe He covers our own foolishness. We figure the Father helps with what happened to us, and the rest we clean up quietly and hope He doesn't look too close.

Look at Jonah. God told him to go east and he bought a ticket west. Nobody did that to him. He went down in the ship and fell asleep, and when the storm hit he told the sailors to throw him overboard. Then Jonah 1:17 says the Lord had prepared a great fish. Prepared. God wasn't scrambling when Jonah hit the water. The rescue had been arranged for a man who was running from Him. The ride wasn't comfortable, but the sin didn't catch heaven off guard. Maybe you've got a story like that, a bad choice that somehow landed better than you had any right to expect. You called it a lucky break back then.

Then there's Peter again, and this one gets me. In Luke 22 Jesus tells him Satan has asked to sift him like wheat. Then He says I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail, and when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers. Jesus said when. He didn't say if. Peter hadn't denied Him yet and the rooster hadn't crowed. Peter was still bragging he'd die with Him, and the prayer had already gone up. After the cross, in John 21, Peter's out in the boat fishing, and a man on the shore asks if they've caught anything. When they get in, there's a charcoal fire going with fish on it and bread, and Jesus says come and have breakfast. Peter walked in with the worst thing he'd ever done on his back, and Jesus handed him bread and fish.

The cross was never Plan B. Revelation 13:8 speaks of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, and Ephesians 1:4 says we were chosen in Him before the foundation of the world. So grace was in place before your first sin, and nothing you've done is big enough to surprise Him. Ephesians 2 says you're seated with Him right now. You're a son in the house, and you don't have to stand outside the door trying to get His attention. He looked at your worst week ahead of time and decided to love you through it.

Remember the boy in Luke 15 who burned through his inheritance? While he was still a great way off, his father saw him and ran. That boy had practiced his speech the whole walk home. He got part of it out, and before he reached the hired servant part, the father was calling for the robe and the ring and the fattened calf. He never did get to finish the apology.

That's why Philippians 4:6 says to be anxious for nothing. Worry is us trying to do the Father's job, and He never asked us to. Think of a kid in the back seat while his dad drives. He's asking if they're there yet and falling asleep against the window, and he never looked at the map. Paul says this peace passes understanding, which tells me it shows up before you can see how things turn out. The facts can still look bad when the peace comes, because they haven't caught up with what the Father has done.

Romans 8:28 says all things work together for good to those who love God. That includes the ones you caused. God takes sin seriously, and I'm not excusing it. I'm telling you He gets His hands into your mess and brings something living out of it. When the good news finally does come, and it will, you don't have to act surprised. Just say thank you.

So what do you do today? Tell Him about it. Nobody's asking you to feel nothing, and you can be honest about being scared, just be honest with Him instead of rehearsing it to the ceiling. First Peter 5:7 says cast your care on Him because He cares for you. Tell Him like a son who knows his Father's working, then go eat supper, get some sleep, and do the next thing in front of you. Those nights you spent sick over it didn't change anything.

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