Now I Get It

“Now I get it!” Have you ever said that before? Maybe it took you a while to get the joke, solve the mystery, or understand the problem. In reality, this probably happens in life a lot more than we care to admit. Sometimes I belatedly “get it” with my wife, other times with my kids. (I suspect they are still waiting for me to get it in certain respects.) Once the lightbulb goes on, however, we see things differently.

That is sure how it worked with Christ’s disciples. There were so many things they didn’t get, didn’t fully grasp, at the time they occurred. The story of Palm Sunday, that we commemorate in church this past Sunday, is a good example. After Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a young donkey to the shouted adoration of the crowds, fulfilling prophecy, the Scripture writer (John, himself a disciple) states, “At first his disciples did not understand all this. Only after Jesus was glorified did they realize that these things had been written about him and that they had done these things to him (John 12:16).” What’s the old expression, “hindsight is 20/20”?

We often don’t get it while we are in the midst of it. When tragedy strikes, we cry out, “Why?” When unexpected blessing occurs, sometimes we miss the point. When we have to daily labor through the mundane of life, we often don’t see what God is patiently doing behind the scenes. We don’t get it at the time. We might not get it until heaven. But that doesn’t make it worthless. That’s where trust comes in. We need to trust God in the middle of tragedy, blessing, and the mundane, recognizing that there is so much we don’t understand. God told Isaiah the prophet, “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts (Isaiah 55:9).” So don’t be surprised when things don’t add up in your mind. That’s okay. You will probably see things differently later. In fact, you just might be pleasantly surprised when you realize what God was up to. Trust Him in the meantime.