Did you watch Sesame Street as a child? I did. I loved it.
One of my favorite segments was the “One of These Things” game. They would show a square evenly divided into four smaller squares. Then, they would add one item to each square, three of which were similar, and one of which was obviously different from the other three. (For example: fish, bird, cat, sun.) Then they’d sing the song:
One of these things is not like the others.
One of these things just doesn’t belong.
Can you guess which thing is doing its own thing?
Guess before my song is done.
And now my song is done.
They would ask which item didn’t belong, and kids everywhere would point to the screen and call out their answers.
I loved that game. It was fun to try to figure out which thing didn’t match the others.
Of course, nowadays, being an adult, this game would hold no challenge. It’s pretty easy to tell that a bicycle doesn’t match a pizza, an ice cream cone, and a bag of chips.
It can be much harder to determine when things don’t match up in life. For example, who would ever have thought that a woman who dislikes domestic pursuits but who loves action, excitement, and intellectual challenges would match well with the calling to be a stay-at-home mom? Or that a brother who is on the autism spectrum would be a good match for two sisters who are extremely sensitive to people acting “not normal” in public? Or that a woman with a traumatic childhood would be a good spouse for a man who grew up in a loving, secure, godly home?
Not very many people on this earth would have made these matches.
But God did. He put all three of these in my family.
Mismatches? Apparently not. Because God always knows what He’s doing.
There are some mismatches that are caused because of sin or poor choices (ours or others’). But those matches ordained by God are never “mis-.” To say otherwise is to say that God makes mistakes.
So when you and I don’t understand how life could have ended up like this, we need to realize that insofar as God has ordained the matches, we are perfectly matched up.
My personality and interests, combined with the circumstances of being a stay-at-home mom? Perfectly matched. Maybe not for smooth sailing and pleasing circumstances all the time, but for that which God wants to accomplish in my life.
I can either set my own happiness as my highest goal, or I can focus on the joy of God’s will being done in me. Which will I deem more pleasing? My temporary pleasure, or my eternal character?
I don’t know what seeming mismatches you face. But I do know this: God doesn’t make mistakes.
It’s not just probable that He has some good in mind for you that is far higher than the good you had envisioned.
It’s a certainty.
Isaiah 55:8—”For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. (NIV)