“We have redemption in Him through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace that He lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure that He planned in Him for the administration of the days of fulfillment-to bring everything together in the Messiah, both things in heaven and things on earth in Him.”
Ephesians 1:7-10
My father is a statistician. He has taught statistics at the university level for over 30 years and does statistical analysis for the university.
I know this because …well … he’s my dad and I took three classes from him when I was a college student.
Three.
In statistics.
In this confessional moment, though, I must acknowledge that I don’t remember much from those days. However, one thing that has stuck with me is that in statistical analysis, you want to be careful when paying too much attention to individual data points. Instead, you want to have enough of those individual data points to see not what they represent individually but the overall trend line they are forming. One data point is a short-sighted, small-range view. But the trend-line is where the truth really lies. It shows us the trajectory, the long-range view, of where things are headed.
I bring this up today because I think the same statistical principle applies in other areas of life. The question isn’t so much about the individual data point. It’s more about the trend line. And the Bible has something to say about that. Specifically, it says this:
Everything is moving toward one thing.
Paul pointed that out in today’s scripture verses:
“We have redemption in Him through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace that He lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure that He planned in Him for the administration of the days of fulfillment-to bring everything together in the Messiah, both things in heaven and things on earth in Him.” Ephesians 1:7-10
Everything is moving toward one thing. God is bringing all things together so that Jesus Christ might be prized and worshiped above all.
Everything is moving toward one thing.
Wait a minute, you might say. I look around every single day and I see little evidence of that fact. Instead, I see sickness and pain. I see rebellion and mocking. In fact, the one thing I don’t see is the world being brought to the realization of the greatness of Jesus.
But remember the data points, remember the trend line, and remember that God is not bound by the shackles of time. He is in it for the long-term.
Remember that for centuries, God had the coming of His Son in His heart. Remember that He slowly revealed pieces of His plan through the law and prophets. Remember that even when Jesus came, people drastically misunderstood.
He is a ‘trend-line’ God. And because He is, we can, by His grace, be trend-line people. When we are trend-line people, we recognize the difference between the overall arc of the universe and an isolated event in time. By faith, we can recognize the gravity of a single situation and yet remain calm and faithful in the midst of it. We can rest assured that God is bending history for His own ends.
We can sleep tonight knowing that everything is moving toward one thing. And it will eventually get there.
In the meantime, we don’t have to wait until then to worship Christ. We have today, a single data point, if you will, to bow our hearts in surrender to His majesty.
Let the trend line of our lives, the accumulation of our days, demonstrate that we cherish and trust Christ above all.
Written by Michael Kelley, Guest Contributor
DIG DEEPER
Read “God is in Control” by George Wright
