“The vision of the evenings and the mornings that has been told is true, but seal up the vision, for it refers to many days from now.”
– Daniel 8:26
Did you catch that? Here’s a vision that was given here in Daniel 8, but it refers to many days from now, so a revelation from God about the future. Just think about that, like meditate on that for a moment. God knows the future. He knows the end from the beginning. And not only knows it, He oversees it. He, in a sense, ordains it. All that’s to come.
This is how we know Romans 8:28 is true. God is working all things together for the good of those who love Him and have been called according to His purpose. The only way we can know that, that God’s working all these things together for good, is if God knows how all these things we’re walking through, especially hard things, tough things, things we don’t understand, how God is going to work it all for good.
So we trust Him. We trust that all of history, past, present, and future is held in the hands of God. And so we trust Him with our life in this moment. Today, I know some of you are going through some things right now that you don’t understand why this is happening, why this has happened, what is God doing? I just think about Jesus’ words to Peter in John 13. He said, “Peter, you don’t understand now, but one day you will understand.” Can I just encourage you with that word from God?
The God who holds your life in His hands, is working all these things together, for the good of those who love Him. So you can trust Him with today, with whatever circumstances are perplexing you or are burdening you, even, to know that your God knows the end from the beginning and one day you will understand. One day you will see, I will see, that in all these things God was good and wise and just and loving and merciful.
Oh God, we say in light of Daniel 8:26 today, we trust in you. And God we pray for help to trust in you when we tend to think we know better than you.
Amidst all our questions and even our agonizing and suffering in pain, God help us to trust in you. I pray for people listening to this right now who are having a hard time trusting in you. God, I pray for a spirit of faith in them that they would know that you are all wise, that you are all good, all loving, that you are just, and that you are all powerful and you will work all things together for the good of those who love you, who have been called according to your purpose.
And we know your purpose is to conform us into the image of Jesus. So we pray, do that today in our lives. No matter what we’re walking through make us more like Jesus today as we trust in you with our past, our present, and our future. And as we praise you with all your promises concerning the future. The reality here in Daniel 8, that what you say in your word will come to pass in the world.
And even that, we know where it’s all headed. We know the end of the story. You wiping every tear from our eyes and not just our eyes, but people from every nation, language, and tongue, for Jewish people across Serbia and spread out in other countries around the world, that your salvation will be made known among all the nations, among all the peoples. Oh, God, you are our hope and we trust in you. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
