“Of if he asks for a fish, will you give him a serpent?” ~ Matthew 7:10
As believers we know two things for absolute certain…first, that God loves us with perfect Fatherly affection, and second that God is sovereign over every detail in the universe.
Sometimes, though, our lives can feel like God is sovereign, but He must not love us that much.
The moment of the news of the miscarriage.
The moment when we hear the cancer diagnosis.
The moment when we realize we don’t have a job.
The moment when the fight just won’t get resolved.
At those lowest of low moments, God wants us to trust that He loves us. In fact, Jesus goes so far as to say that as our Father, He would NEVER give us something that isn’t good for us. Just as an earthly father wouldn’t give his son a snake instead of a fish, God would never give us anything but a good gift.
Snakes or fish?
Even very young children know the difference between a fish and a snake. One they’ll catch, eat, or watch, and the other they know is dangerous.
The problem is that sometimes, we are like a child who might know the difference, but refuses to trust that a fish is a fish!
When sufferings come into our lives, we look at them, and rightly identify them as painful. We begin to think of that suffering as something evil…something wrong…a snake.
But Jesus, in His wisdom, tells us to trust our heavenly Father. He always gives fish. He NEVER gives snakes.
So when something comes to us that looks like a snake, what should we do? We need to stop examining the thing to make our own classification. We need to stop playing zoologist. Instead, we need to accept that the thing is a fish—it’s good!
And we know it’s good because it has come from our loving heavenly Father—He knows a fish from a snake! If he gave up His Son, He will certainly give us everything else for our good (Rom 8:32)!
