Cyrus who??

Working in a public middle school as I do, I get quite a bit of mileage with the kids about the fact that my brother-in-law is the actor who plays the Hocus Pocus zombie, Billy Butcherson, as well as the fish-man Abe Sapien in the Hellboy movies.  His colorful C.V. goes on from there: Pan and the Pale Man in Pan’s Labyrinth, the dude on the skateboard in The Rise of the Silver Surfer, Cochise in the TV series, Falling Skies, yeah, all that.  I’m vicariously cool through Bob’s little brother, Doug.

Part of the fun in all that is hearing some of the h-i-l-a-r-i-o-u-s stories that go on behind the scenes. 

Nope.  Not sharing any of them here.  That’s my children’s “Uncle Dougie’s” part to tell; you can look up Doug on his website: http://www.thedougjonesexperience.com/

But I like the idea of what’s happening in life “behind the scenes” that few know anything about.  I suspect it’s happening all the time, but either it’s important for us NOT to know (for various reasons, one of which invariably is that knowing it would totally freak us out), or else we’re just not listening.

The latter was more to the point in the following account of God’s dealing with His favorite but very stubborn nation of Israel.  The people were doing what they ALWAYS did (and what we are just as prone to do), that is, disobey God, and God was doing what he generally NEEDED to do, which was discipline His children.  And like typical children, they whined.

“This is what the LORD says—the Holy One of Israel and your Creator: ‘Do you question what I do for my children?  Do you give me orders about the work of my hands?’’

Admittedly, it’s pretty tough to see life past your nose when it’s being pointed at by an enemy spear.  I doubt that I would have done any better; not sure I always do now, even in decidedly less severe circumstances. But almost in the next breath, God gives them a peek, and a very specific one at that, into what’s He’s preparing behind the scenes:

“I will raise up Cyrus to fulfill My righteous purpose, and I will guide his actions”

Not that they knew who this Cyrus was, especially since he wasn’t going to be born for several hundred years yet.

The point is this: No matter how bad it gets, we can trust God in His dealings with His children.  And no matter how bad it looks, God is always working behind the scenes (His “Cyrus’s” abound).  God has options we’re not even aware of.

“Truly, O God of Israel, our Savior, You work in mysterious ways.”

 

Isaiah 45:11, 13, 15   Tyndale House Publishers Inc (2008-06-01). The One Year Bible NLT (One Year Bible: Nlt Book 2) (Kindle Locations 31581-31593). Tyndale House Publishers. Kindle Edition.