Big Buts of the Bible

An Excerpt from Chapter 12: A Devotional Thought

Read Matthew 10:5–8, 18–20

Matthew chapter 10 contains some unsettling instructions. Jesus speaks of opposition, rejection, arrests, trials, and suffering. Yet woven throughout the chapter are repeated assurances that God is with His people. He knows. He sees. He cares. He will provide words when words are needed. He watches over them so closely that He even numbers the hairs on their heads.

But there is another promise hidden in the middle of these verses.

Did you catch it?

When Jesus first sends His disciples out, He specifically instructs them not to go to the Gentiles. Their mission, for the moment, is focused elsewhere. Yet only a few verses later, Jesus tells them that they will eventually stand before governors and kings as witnesses “to them and to the Gentiles.”

What happens?

God’s larger plan happens.

The very hardships they would one day face would become the means by which the message traveled farther than they could presently imagine. What looked like obstacles would become opportunities. What appeared to be setbacks would become pathways. What seemed frightening in the moment would eventually reveal itself as part of a much bigger story.

This is often how God works.

Most of us live looking through the windshield of today. We see the appointment on the calendar. The difficult conversation. The setback. The diagnosis. The disappointment. The unanswered prayer. The unexpected detour. We naturally ask, “Why is this happening?”

But God sees beyond today. He sees tomorrow. And next year. And eternity.

The disciples could not yet imagine how the gospel would spread throughout the Gentile world. They could not see how their struggles, journeys, testimonies, and sacrifices would become part of God’s larger plan.

Neither can we always see what God is doing with ours.

That doesn’t mean every hardship is easy. It doesn’t mean every question gets answered. It doesn’t mean every pain immediately makes sense. It simply means that God is often working on parts of the picture we cannot yet see.

Perhaps something you’re experiencing today is part of a story still being written. Perhaps the thing that feels confusing now will one day become a testimony of God’s faithfulness. Perhaps these present struggles are being woven into something eternal while you remain completely unaware.

Can you trust God with as much of the picture as you can see? Can you trust Him with the parts that are still hidden?

Can you trust Him with the “but I…” moments—the moments when your understanding ends, but His purposes continue?

Because if Matthew chapter 10 teaches us anything, it is that God is already at work in chapters of the story that have not yet been revealed.