Each Peach Pear Plum - Janet & Allan Ahlberg

This story is a classic take on that much used car game I spy. It was a favourite even when my kids could spot the person hiding on every page from memory. Here's the deal...

Each page has a person from a well known nursery rhyme to spot, they are hidden in the scene (not as well as Wally is, but good enough to have a 3 year old looking for a while). It rhymes as well, which is always a joy!

What's delightful about this classic is it's ability to draw you right into the illustrations (which are beautiful!) in order to find the hidden clue. It requires time to be taken over the drawings despite the text being just two lines on each page. There's no rush with this book. And here we find the fundamental human truth - some treasures require a search.

I realise this might be a bit of an obscure observation about people, in fact it's not really 'people based' but it is fact of being human. We do not always see things as they are, or first time around. We miss things, details, main points, buses, you know the kind of thing I mean. We don't always, at first, understand the scene before us. We are easily perplexed by circumstance or situations. We miss it and are left bamboozled and confused.

I remember as a child having a book of perspectives - the ones where the picture could be one of two things, like and old lady or a young girl. And can still remember my dad's frustration (and mine!) that I could only see the old lady, the young girl escaped me. Even now I see the old lady first and have to really focus to see her younger self. It just perplexed me, the whole book, how some were so easy to see and others were out of my grasp.

Life is no different, I am sure I don't need to tell you that. From the complexity of buttons and using the loo when you're two, to office dynamics and the tea kitty system in our 30s we don't get it first time. And this is even more true of God's work on this earth. God has His own plans and purposes which He lovingly reveals to us at the right time, but for most of the time, I am in the dark as to what He is doing. Largely it is because I don't see all He does -

"And these are just the outer fringe of his works, how faint the whisper we hear of him! Who then can understand the thunder of his power?" Job 26v14

There is so much of God's good work that I have no idea about, but the Bible tells me it's happening, so I must trust that it is.

The other part of my lack of understanding comes from the fact that my agenda and God's aren't always on the same page. What I think is a great idea, He has some objections to. What He goes ahead and does I have some questions over. Significant questions I might add. And this despite being told -

"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to HIs purpose" Romans 8v28

But I cannot always see it. God is always at work for good, but I am blind to it - or rather I have my eyes shut and am looking in the wrong direction. So here is the fundamental Bible truth that answers this human problem; God is always at work for good. The Bible tells us this is many ways, but here's two - firstly God cannot do anything else.

God is good. He's not just a good guy or doing good things (although those things are true) He is goodness. He cannot be anything other than good. He can be no more good than He is because He is full of goodness (there's no room for any more goodness in Him if there were any left over, which there isn't!) All God does is good and for His glory. His actions cannot be anything else because if they were He would cease to be God. And He can't do that either. So we're pretty covered on this front.

Secondly there is this -

"Being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus" Philippians 1v6

God will carry on working for good in the life of the believer until that work is done. He will never cease at this work. So if you know you are still a work in progress then you also know that God is not done yet.

God is doing something all the time, whatever situation befalls us in life. The problem I have, and maybe you do too, is that I stop looking for what He is doing. Rather like my three year old, I give up and try to turn the page and move onto an easier I Spy. I write it off as a bad day/week/ year and hurry the next one in, in the hope that it will be better. But there is a reason that you are stuck on this page, desperately hunting for evidence of God's brushstrokes. And we shouldn't hurry on.

Now please don't think I'm brushing the pain, hurt, and devastation that comes with living on this fallen earth away. Life is, sadly often, brutal. It knocks us about and aims to take us down. But the call to rejoice in suffering, which rings through the Bible, is an instruction that must be do-able, or it would be cruel to have put it there. And so we circle back to the page and hunt around again for what is hidden there. What small joy or blessing, what lesson or building of our own character, what nugget of God's character that grows our faith in Him is lurking there waiting to be discovered.

There is treasure to be found. In the pain, in the heartache, in the sorrow, great jewels of God's goodness, His very fingerprint left there to remind us He is not done yet. So keep looking, what lies there buried is worth it.