Promises fulfilled - Mysterious ways

In today's entry (Job 12) of the ongoing argument between Job and his friends, Job declares that we really can't put God in a box. Yes, we can say that it is He who is behind all that transpires in life, but that is as far as we can go. Though Job's friends think they have God all figured out, Job argues that His ways cannot be crammed into their tidy little system. As we said before, this God "cannot be tamed".
We see how true this is in our other passages today. God had given Abraham many promises (Gen 12, 15,...). He would have a son; his name would be great; through him a great nation would be birthed; in him all the nations of the earth would be blessed. And as we have read we see that God is being true to His promises, but what we also see is that God often does things in ways we could never have imagined. Yes, He is true to His promises, but the way He chooses to fulfill them is often in ways we could never have imagined.
God promised Abraham he would become a great nation, and how did God choose to do it? From Jacob's perspective, God ripped his son out of his life. For years he lived with the delusion that his firstborn son was dead. Then a famine came, and he had to send his sons away to find food. Fast forwarding to Gen 46, Jacob, now a company of 70, is reunited with Joseeph where God plants them so that they can become a multitude - a great nation. Who would have written that script? All the twists and turns (at least from the human perspective), yet God was being faithful to His promises.
Then there is the promise of blessing all nations through Abraham. How would God accomplish that? He sent His Son, whom He loved, to mount a cross and take upon Himself the sins of the world AND the punishment those sins deserved. He would cause His Son to cry out "My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?" Who would have thought of that? Can you imagine the confusion of the disciples as they saw Jesus taken down from the cross and placed in a tomb? Do you think they wondered for a moment what God was doing? But Sunday came, and Jesus burst forth from the tomb, proving that His sacrifice for sin was acceptable and that He indeed had conquered death.
We could go on and talk about how God chose to propagate this message of good news, to bring the blessing of Abraham to the nations. Would we have chosen Saul, a killer of Christians, to become the prominient apostle, the writer of much of our New Testament?
No - God's ways are not our ways. Yes, He is faithful to His promises. We can count on that, but know that He will surprise us over and over again in the way He chooses to fulfill those promises.
Are you experiencing some difficulties today? Are you confused, wondering what God is doing? Do you think He has made some mistakes with your life? If you have ever had thoughts like that, today's lesson is for you. Know that God is true to His promises. Find those promises in the Bible and cling to them with confidence. God will be found faithful to every one of them. But don't put God in a box. His fulfillment of those promises may not be in ways you would expect. Though you can't see how your life circumstances fit His plan, know that our God has no limits and that His ways are "passed finding out". Romans 16:17 -...to the only wise God be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ. Amen.