Have you ever watched a knitter? See the pins are having a pitched battle. First one gets all the wool and then the other takes it back again. The struggle seems interminable. No certain advantage is being gained by one side, or the other. What is going on? I do not know. But the knitter knows. There is a design behind all her doing. She has a purpose and a plan, and thus she puts on stitch after stitch, making every one work together for the fulfillment of the end in view.
And so it is in the ways of God with us. He is at work for our good and blessing. He orders for us in the details of our lives, and guides by ways we know not. The great events and the little are alike employed by Him on our behalf. All are controlled by His hand on behalf of His own.
When the sock or the mitten is complete, anyone can tell what the knitter’s object had been. However ignorant of the art of knitting the watcher may have been, the result is apparent now.
And by and by we shall know what we know not now. We only see through a glass darkly at present. Then we shall see clearly face to face.
The knitter may mar her handiwork. She may drop a stitch. She may have to pull out several rows and do that part of the work over again. But thus it never is with God. His work is perfect. He never drops a stitch. He never makes a mistake. He never has to do His work a second time. Well may we leave ourselves, our lives, our circumstances in His all-skillful hands, and know that His loving heart, will perfect what concerns us.
“All things work together for good to them that love God” (Rom. 8:28).
“Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless, afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruits of righteousness unto them that are exercised thereby” (Heb. 12:11).