'I don't understand it' file

I read a devotional from Pastor Joel recently. The title of the message is 'File It". He said that when things happen in your life that you don’t plan, do you find yourself trying to reason it all out or look for a “file” so to speak in your mind to put it in? What happens when you can’t reason it out or make sense of it all?

He offered the answer: Every one of us needs to create a file in our thinking called the “I Don’t Understand It” file. When things come up that don’t make sense, things that we can’t figure out, instead of getting frustrated or confused, put it in your “I Don’t Understand It” file and leave it alone. If we go through life trying to figure out why something bad happened or why things didn’t work out, it will cause us to become bitter and stuck in life. Part of trusting God means trusting Him when things don’t make sense because we know that His plan is always for good. We have to know that He will reveal all things in His time — even if that means in eternity.

There were certain things that happened that did not make sense in 2012 that I know I need to file away. I told the Lord: I choose today to file all these questions and disappointments away in the 'I don't understand it' file. I surrender all my past disappointments to You and still decide to trust You. Without You I am nothing. Who am I to even question Your plan and Your purposes? Yet in Your lovingkindness, You always reveals things to me to satisfy me. Thank God I have come to a place of peace and rest where all these things don't matter anymore. Why should I put my focus on things in the past when I know I cannot go back to change things? Why should I let all these unhappy things hold me back from the glorious future God has prepared in 2013?

Besides, the Lord asked me whether it makes any sense for Him to send His only begotten Son, the darling of heaven to come and die for us. Whatever Jesus had suffered before and on the cross - did it make any sense? Well, at the moment of His death, it totally did not make any sense to the disciples and for those who believed He is the Messiah. But after three days, when He resurrected from the grave and on Pentecost, after the Holy Spirit descended on the believers, it totally made sense. He had thoroughly defeated the devil and wrought victory for us all! God told me it made sense only when one could see His heart of love for us. It made sense only when we saw things in retrospect or on hindsight. Only God is the timeless One and He has the advantage of seeing things from the beginning to the end. And in the light of His great love for us, all these senseless things seemed so insignificant...there is no need to even ask 'Why, God? Why?' anymore.

Lord, I don't care why all that happened and it doesn't matter that things don't happen the way I hoped. Anyway it is not about me. It's all about Jesus. I let it all go. Today I surrender my past. I surrender my need to have all the answers and I choose to trust You. If You had wanted me to know, You would have shown it to me. But if You chose to hide from me, it must be because it is no longer important or that it is not beneficial for me. Or maybe the time was not right yet to reveal the answers to me. I don't need to put the focus on the enemy's plan and why he seemed to have succeeded...he loves attention but I am not going to give him any. I choose to give my attention to Jesus, the altogether lovely One. Only Jesus deserves all the praise and glory! And I know Jesus has already given me victory. The evil one cannot win. He is a defeated foe!