Around a week ago, I was trying to enrol into my university courses for the next semester. However, a problem occurred: When I checked, there were no vacancies left for one of my core units, so I wasn't able to enrol in this course. I started to panic because this was going to cause a large inconvenience for me...
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Everything we know now started at that date, when a miracle was performed by the breath of God. We are all familiar with this opening sentence of the Bible, but should we pay a little more attention to the implications it has for us?
It says to us that God is a God of miracles, and it has been this way from the beginning. And if you think about it, God hasn't changed since then, so even now he performs all sorts of miracles.
Throughout life we often forget about God in our times of trouble, trying to solve things on our own. We think that we can rely on our own ability because we know ourselves so well. The fact of the matter is we don't know ourselves as well as we like to make out. Jesus says "Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered." (Luke 12 verse 7)
In other words, God knows us more than we do and hence the best way to solve our problems. However, sometimes we downplay the works that God does in our lives, often considering these things as coincidence. In reality though, God plays more of a role in our lives than we can imagine: "The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord." (Proverbs 16 verse 33)
This shows us that God plays a role in every part of our life, not just those that really count as some might think.
So in our times of trouble, when we have the least hope of succeeding and coming out on top, we must put our hope in the Lord, for he says "My power is made perfect in weakness." (2 Corinthians 12 verse 9)
In this way we can say that it was the Lord who provided for us, and that this was not done through our own ability.
If we know that we serve a God that performs all sorts of miracles, and plays a critical role in every part of our lives and always saves us in times of trouble where there is little hope of success, is there really a reason to worry about these issues in the first place?
The answer is clear after looking at the problem discussed earlier: Just before I was going to email the course supervisor, I checked the vacancies one final time and found that conveniently all but one place was now taken, allowing me to enrol.
God is faithful in every part of our lives and never lets us down, even when we think there is no chance of things turning out right.
Tim Robertson is from Sydney and is studying engineering at UNSW
Tim Robertson's previous articles may be found at www.pressserviceinternational.org/tim-robertson.html