God's Best Right Now

I cry out to God Most High, to God who fulfills His purpose for me.
He will send from heaven and save me; He will put to shame Him who tramples on me.
God will send out his steadfast love and His faithfulness!
My soul is in the midst of lions; I lie down among fiery beasts--
the children of man, whose teeth are spears and arrows, whose tongues are sharp swords.
Be exalted, O God, above the heavens! Let Your glory be over all the earth!
--Psalm 57:2-5 written by David when he fled from Saul in the cave

I recently heard someone who was going through a difficult season in their ministry say, "We all know God has His best in mind for us, but we just want to know what that best is." I understood. I often ask God to fulfill His purpose for me, to show me what it is He has me here to be and do, to show me this "best" He has in mind for me. But this time the thought occurred to me, "What if right now is His best for me?" and "What if that 'best' includes the pain I'm experiencing in the here and now?" Someone once said that sometimes our Plan B was God's Plan A all along. The fact is, right now is His best for me right now...whether I'm suffering or smiling. Why do I keep looking around the corner for God to fulfill His purpose for me in some big, flashy way when His purpose for me is to love Him with all that I am right now and to love my neighbor, whomever that happens to be right now?

David wrote about the "God who fulfills His purpose for me" while he was in the midst of persecution. God's "best" was David's "right now". Though David knew that God's purpose included a future throne (now that's big and flashy!), He accepted the "right now" of unjust persecution as God's best for him right now. But David didn't stop at stoically receiving his present circumstances as "whatever will be will be". Rather, in the deep darkness of his pain he loved God by praising His glory (Psalm 57), and he loved his enemy, Saul, by refusing to take an opportunity to kill him (1 Samuel 24:1-22).

Right now there are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of my brothers and sisters all over the world who are suffering for the sake of Christ. We prayed for some of them tonight at our evening service set aside to remember the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church. Hidden in their homes, they live the cruciform life by worshipping God and praying for those who persecute them. Tonight, I sat comfortably in my padded pew wearing a new shirt I got for my birthday wondering, "Do I really know what it means to suffer for Jesus? Do I dare ask God for such affliction so that I might know Him more intimately? Or am I already severely afflicted by the affluence, comfort, and ease which dull my heart's desire to love God and others?"

I cry out to You, O God Most High...settle me this second in Your best!