He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.

Ecclesiastes 3:11 NIV

This week I’m starting some new treatment…brand new.  I’ll be one the first to have it since its been approved.   New medicines, it seems, are being developed all the time to keep us alive and well. 

I’ve been amazed at all this, at the ingenuity and genius of the scientists and researchers, the doctors who make the treatment decisions and all the countless nurses who administer the treatment and care for me.

I know that for many science will always have all the answers.  How can God exist in the face of such evidence?  Moreover how can a good God put me through such pain and suffering (and others far worse)?  How can I put my faith in God when everything seems to be going wrong.  I totally get these arguments and I’d be lying if I said I never have doubts.

But I don’t believe my God is absent from this process.  Far from it!  I believe He is creator of all things. Every brilliant mind, every caring heart, every chemical, every cell and every atom.

For whatever reason our bodies go wrong from time to time.  Sometimes this is self-inflicted,  but often we don’t know why.  God has created us in such a way that our bodies try to heal themselves and when they can’t we need help from all the scientists, doctors, nurses and medicines available.   I am so fortunate to have these available to me, I know not everyone does.

But God means far more to me than good health or material things.  He has given me a plan and a purpose for my life.  He has given me peace in time of turmoil and worry.  He has given me an eternal hope.  These are not things I can measure or prove and I’m neither intelligent or articulate enough to convince anyone to the contrary.  But I experience them every day and I see the goodness of God all around me, even in these difficult times. 

As these verses say no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. There is often great mystery in what we go through and what we see God do (or sometimes what he appears not to be doing).  But I don’t believe that God is making things up as he goes along, there is purpose in all his works.  Many didn’t understand what Jesus’s purpose was until he died and rose again, even his closest friends and family. 

So much happens in us that we can’t always understand while we go through it and maybe we will only see when his works are complete.  Either way my hope remains in him who makes everything beautiful in its time.