Your 100 Day Prayer: Day 41 – Vision of the Air

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.-Romans 8:28

Remember on Day 3 when we read Genesis 50:20 where Joseph told his brothers, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives”? In Paul’s letter, he is reminding us once again that God brings good out of the bad. Dr. Snyder explains this further with the following illustration.

“In World War I, when a fighter pilot first went into the air, he hadn’t yet acquired the skill to see everything going on around him. As he gained more experience, he started to see the details that had escaped him earlier—enemy fighter planes over, around, and above him. This maturity was referred to as the ‘vision of the air.'”

He goes on to say, “Similarly we have what may be called ‘eyes of faith’—faith that matures and moves from something that may be fairly tentative and unsure, to a matter of genuine confidence and security. It graduates from ‘I hope so’ to ‘I know so.’ What we learn is that God uses the bad that happens to us (all of it, every last trace) to bring into our lives the good he wants for us, whatever anyone else’s intentions are. Others may set out to harm us, but God turns it for our good. Only he can do that. We can’t.

When we realize this, it will change the way we see everything. If we understand that God really does get involved in everything that affects us, that he’s our overseer and friend who holds all power in his hands and controls everything that happens, then we can move forward knowing there isn’t anything to fear—nothing can truly harm us—and failure or disaster can never really destroy us.”

TODAY’S PRAYER: God doesn’t expect us to thank him for the evil that comes our way, but he wants us to thank him today that he is now using that evil to bring good our way.

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Photo by pkowaluk via Flickr