Handling the Truth - Luke 18:34

"But they didn’t understand any of this. The significance of his words was hidden from them, and they failed to grasp what he was talking about." What Jesus was talking about was His impending death and resurrection. Has this ever happened to you? A signficant work of God--even a miracle--occurs right in front of you and it goes completely unnoticed by you, until later! This happens to me more often than not! God is at work around me and I'm even praying for God's will and then I don't understand the unfolding of His plans because it's not what I expected or wanted to happen. All of us are familiar with the old saying, "Hindsight is better than foresight." That is what happened to the disciples here, as I am certain they understood the significance of His words after He was resurrected and appeared to them. While the saying may seem trite, it is often the way God works with us. We seem to understand and appreciate God's fortuitous circumstances only after they occur. God works this way with us for a reason that is best illustrated by a famous movie line. In a scene from the movie, A Few Good Men, Guantanamo Bay Naval Base Commander Colonel Nathan R. Jessep (Jack Nicholson) is under pressure by defense attorney Junior Grade Daniel Kaffee (Tom Cruise) during his testimony before the courtmartial of two of his Marines. Becoming unnerved by being caught in a lie, Colonel Jessep furiously declares "You can't handle the truth!" and dismisses Kaffee as disrespectful of a Marine doing his duty. The fact is, we can't handle the truth! We either deny it or refuse to accept it at least until it personally impacts us. Why don't we "get it" when God shows us what He is doing? If we fully processed all that God is doing around us, then we might try to take things into our own hands. Certainly, God uses human beings to accomplish His will, but when His will affects us personally then we can find ourselves working against God's plans either because we don't like the plan or because we think we can accomplish it better than God can! Sometimes miracles need to remain unnoticed until after they occur when we can fully understand their significance from God's perspective. That's how we learn how to trust God!